r/Wellthatsucks • u/mattloaf666 • 9h ago

Reading festival 2026

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291

u/bradstokes 8h ago

I was there in 09 and it was horrific. The Saturday night was pure chaos. I remember the field next to mine had flames 15-20ft high from a bonfire made of tents but the fire marshal decided to come to my tent instead and extinguish a fire I had made in a bean can...

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u/Demoliri 7h ago

Wacken in Germany was also like this. My last time was in 2010 and in the camp site after the last day the fire brigade were just driving from one campsite to the other putting out tent fires. People were stacking up hundreds of tents into a pile and setting them alight. The whole area stunk of melted plastic, it was horrid. I was also there in 2005 and 2007, and it wasn't quite as bad, but still a mess after the last day.

Needless to say I haven't been back to Wacken since, and I instead go to smaller festivals.

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u/anondreamitgirl 7h ago

They need to start introducing large fines for littering

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u/Demoliri 6h ago

Incredibly difficult to enforce I think. Without mass surveillance, how will they know who each tent belongs to? And even if they have video of them abandoning their tent, they then need to ID them and track them down. Then there's the issue of international guests, which make up a huge percentage of these bigger festivals.

In theory I would love it to be punished, but I have no idea how to make that work.

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u/MyLifeBeTenshi 5h ago

The best "solution" I've encountering at most festivals in Germany is to charge a "trash deposit" with the ticket, and refund it if you brought a full trash bag to a trash point. Deichbrand was clean AF this year after people left

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u/Shamanjoe 2h ago

That sounds like an awesome idea.

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u/Demoliri 2h ago

They do this at Summer Breeze and Party San, and last time I went to Metaldays in Tolmin (in 2019 I think?) they also did this. It definitely helps to a degree, but it has to be enforced and the deposit has to be meaningful.

For example, in Metaldays the deposit was only €5 and they accepted the deposit bags when a single empty can of beer was in them. That festival was moderately clean, but I don't think that the deposit bag had anything to do with that as it was just as clean before they introduced it.

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u/MarketingSad5312 59m ago

Exactly. The idea is good, but the enforcement is everything. Otherwise people just treat the deposit as another small festival expense

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u/dikicker 29m ago

Ah, the Aldi shopping cart method, works like a charm

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u/strat-fan89 5h ago

You pay for your festival ticket. If you select camping, a 500 [currency] hold is put on your credit card. Each tent gets an RFID tag on arrival where your tickets are checked. They cost next to nothing. Your tent is registered upon entry. If your tent is not registered again when you leave, the 500 [currency] is deducted from your account.

Alternatively, you could do spot checks of cars while leaving the area. Someone has a three day pass with camping and leaves with a nearly empty car without a tent? Boom, 500 [currency] fine for you. Yes, you really DID agree to these terms and conditions while purchasing your tickets. Yes of course you may go back and clean up your (any) campsite and have your fine wiped.

Two ways, just from the top of my head. Definitely not perfect. I bet there would be others and possibly even better ones. People would only need to care.

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u/eggrolldog 3h ago

Haha guess you don't know the reprobates at Leeds/Reading; you'll have some psychos going round cutting out or otherwise destroying everyone's RFID tags. Then they'll still leave their tent and steal someone else's once it's taken down for them.

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u/strat-fan89 2h ago

Then apparently you cannot hold a large festival in that area. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/Loose-Supermarket286 3h ago

Ah, well, those over-engineered ultra-technical solutions. Sounds good, while you are sitting comfortably in your chair at home, but completely impractical. To give you an example: I was at Rock im Park in Nuremberg this year. And to buy anything, you had to wear an RFID chip. I didn't need camping or merchandise - just a drink and something to eat. Well, you needed to register with all details, address, bank account, create an account. Transfer money to your festival account. Tons of data protection agreements. After the festival you waited for over two weeks, until they transfered back the money to your bank. For a coke. And a burger. This is the price of RFID+money. You will scare a lot of people who never intended littering.

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u/NoPriorThreat 3h ago

Yet, Rock im Park is still fully sold out every year, even with RFID chips to buy drink or meal.

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u/strat-fan89 2h ago

I provided a second, way less technical solution. I am also not a festival organizer. I am just saying, there are methods out there. They each have their shortcomings, I am aware. But if this is the result of doing nothing, then literally anything is better than this. Even not having a festival at all would be preferrable to this. Keep in mind that whatever you do can always be combined with a "I'm sorry we had to do this, but you left us no choice" campaign. Do that for ten years and maybe measures can be dialled back again.

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u/English_Mothafukka 5h ago

You fine the organizers. A heavy enough fine and they will come up with a way of holding people accountable.

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u/retrojoe 4h ago

I went to a festival in Australia where it was normal to bring couches. You had to pay a deposit, they tagged the couch, and you got the deposit back when you proved you were leaving with it.

Granted, tents are more fiddly, but you get the idea.

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u/biggreasyrhinos 3h ago

Maybe require a deposit to bring in a tent, and you get part of it back if you leave with a tent?

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u/Demoliri 1h ago

As simple as this sounds, I actually like it.

When you go on with a tent, you pay a €50 deposit, and get a tent deposit voucher. When you leave, you show your tent and get the €50 back.

The only issue is the logistics, as the morning after a festival is a traffic nightmare at the best of times, but in essence a good idea.

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u/asaintpotatoe 3h ago

It can be done without "Mass Surveillance". Enforcing checkpoints at entry, Pre-Registration for tent tags that require a credit card hold for an event amount, that amount reflects how much you need to enforce, tags can be anything serialized through distributers online (doesn't have to be super sophisticated), a terms and conditions sheet can be made electronically and printed, refunds are dispersed on tracked tents that are then not on record after pickup. Your local City Council should be able to assist in coordinating the events also. Event Coordination being done the right way don't end like this poop pile.

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u/MysticGardenMagic 3h ago

The same way they ticket traffic offenses.

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u/Eveready116 1h ago

Whoever owns the tent gets a printed receipt sticker ahead of the festival and the same code gets logged in a database. You present the sticker WITH the tent on your way out of the venue. It gets scanned and crossed out of the database.

Fine set to $£€ 2000 that gets mailed to your address/ linked to your ID so that the slobs actually clean up after themselves.

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u/Salty_Button 1h ago

I think the fine should be included in the ticket prices. Perhaps their is a element of the ticket price for the clean up as it is part of the event after all. And perhaps that element has just been taken as extra profits? I dread to think of the mess of the other fields with cars and buses. It must take a few years for the ground to fully recover. When you see all this waste it can be difficult to remember that near half of the country live on or below the poverty line. But not round there...

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u/DerDork 1h ago

I know festivals where you get a designated area to camp. One could ask for a deposit for that space. If it’s clean after leave, deposit is released.

I was also organizing car meetings for 16 years. We have had oil-soaking mats for the cars, they were mandatory. The guests all got a bag for trash, a oil mat and left a 10€ deposit at the entry. They we had one container for oil mats, one for general trash. If you threw in your stuff there, you got back your money. Worked well. But yeah. We had like 500 guests or so.

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u/Kodiak01 1h ago

Without mass surveillance, how will they know who each tent belongs to?

They don't need to. Each ticket should have a surcharge sufficient to cover a professional cleaning crew to come through afterward. The level should be right on the edge of punitive.

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u/Old_Man_Shea 4h ago

They Shouldn't be held

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u/one-small-plant 5h ago

I guess this is what flock cameras are for!

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u/rocqus 5h ago

Cameras at the event on poles and drones. People get paid commission for each confirmed infraction. Give people incentive to find and charge the transgressors and give people a reason not to abandon their stuff.