We are not to blame!

[choadus]

Make it 18+? Bullsh*t. Everyone else has already agreed with me, that the c*nts are spread out over all the age groups. Trust me, their are very few people for who it will be the first time away from home. It seems that a certain, more snobbish group of people have simply latched onto my age group because it's easier than facing that fact that it's their age group as well. And download is not over 18, my friend went the day before his seventeenth.

[lharris92]

nah i meant that download is a rock festival and doesn't have anywhere near as much trouble,

[choadus]

Yea I think I only saw 2 bands on NME, most of it was dross. Main, Lockup and Festival Republic stage all the wau

[j-j-j-j-joe!]

Agreed. You should have seen how empty the NME was for Serj Tankian, and he was seriosuly good! Like I said, most of the trouble seemed to be caused by the people who turned up at Blink, Dizzee etc, then vanished back to the campsite afterwards.

[theramm]

thats cause people go to download for the music. reading & leeds has the radio1 & nme bandwagon where people get sucked into thinking their cool if they listen to those bands. ALSO theres the others who are the real knobheads who go "cause its cool" just to cause trouble.

idk why i put the first point in but hey its my opinion!

[Chihiro Cheeks]

Age has nothing to do with it! N whats with blaming Blink fans?

[Budweiser]

I camped in Purple and it was fine, talk about exaggeration much. Should of been in purple in 08 if you want to see "Angry mob".

I find in all my 6 years going to Reading that's it's the people who don't go for the music that cause the trouble, you know the ones. The ones that only know hit songs and don't pick people up in mosh pits and cause crowd surges, you know the types, the f**king assholes of society.

Edited September 1, 2010 by Budweiser

[Vieuphoria]

Some guy camped next to us in Purple this year seemingly had his tent slash. Guy seemed really pissed off, rightfully so. I don't understand why people need to break shit for fun?

[FiestaDave]

I won't probably be attending next year though, too many c**ts. On Friday, I got £20 nicked. On Saturday, I got my phone nicked. On Monday, I was waiting at the drop off point, left my stuff for five minutes, well within view of a steward (and by that time there were only about 5 groups there, and there was no traffic to direct, so he wasn't exactly overloaded...) When I came back, all my stuff had gone, which was a pretty expensive tent, and a bright pink rucksack containing a good few hundred quids worth of clothes, money, etc.

[Huwbacca]

Everything was fine for me really, I was camped in Blue only a few tents in from the Main road coming out of the village which was 2 minutes away and I didnt encounter any problems. All the things that I didnt want to lose I kept in a locker such as my car keys, iPod. Everything else I kept on me the whole time like my phone and wallet. All my neighbours were fine, a huge group of scousers camped behind us, they were all really nice so I had a great time. I feel sorry for anyone that got anything stolen, I hope karma gets those dickheads. I guess im lucky that everything was fine for me, but knowing my luck next year I will have a horrid time.

[Bradders]

Pointless point. I was camped right next to you Huwbacca. My story in the drunkards thread was about those scousers.

[eoJ]

jesus dude you really did get a rough deal this year! All I can say for the future is to keep valuables on you at all times and never leave anything valuable in your tent.

I dont see what makes people feel that lobbing piss is a good idea, its disgusting! Some tit lobbed a bag of human crap at Limp Bizkit, I mean just why?!?!?!

[rexclark]

Hehe, thanks. But yeah, I will, although I think next year I'll be sticking to Glastonbury, Guilfest, and maybe T in the park. Less pikeys.

[mattl]

Now this is my personal view on events:

I'm pretty sure this burning bull$h1t started around 2005. I'm not saying before that there were no problems pre-2005, because there was, but '05 was the year I remembered things started to get bad on the last day. Since then I think it's only gotten worse to this year, but because of a major shift in the demographic aided by many reasons:

1: The proliferation of festivals as a major cultural icon in the UK, providing an entirely new fanbase who previously thought slumming it for many days in a tent to watch music was ridiculous. i.e. the 'Lads on Tour' Brigade who are normally feeling up less than reputable females in Ibiza, seemed to have invaded R&L.

2: Download and Sonisphere being much friendlier places to go to whilst also having an atmosphere, even the lock-up felt tame this year. Plus although they have a less diverse set of acts they almost instantly stole a large section of R&L audience.

3: Too many increases in Price and Capacity, I think I paid £80 in 2003, and I could camp anywhere if I got in Mid-thursday morning.

4: As shown by the 2009 festival line-up, a major shift in accomadating newer fans with newer trendier bands etc. which nudged out the purists if they wern't already gone.

5: I heard far too many people, i.e. more than 1 person, talking about not knowing X or Y band this year and are rubbish because "they are". I mean come-on people hadn't heard of Arcade Fire and were heading to a festival notorious for promoting alternative acts of great quality. actually...

6: The lack of people knowing any music other than club music, RnB music, Oasis and anything pumped into their ears by NME, Celebrity Culture or Radio 1 (Mike Davies show not included, due to it being counter-culture and Punkish, completely unlike what these new generations of fans like or listen to.)

7: ...then allowing the promoters (NME, Radio 1 etc.) to run the stages, continuing the cycle of changing the festival from a successful alternative event to a giant NME advert, further alienating the core fan-base.

8: Any People who continually think that Reading is basically Woodstock '99 yearly and in the UK. It Isn't.

That's all i can think of at any rate but the situation is as follows More Idiots and droves of Newer festival goer's dampening the experience of older Reading and Leeds fans, who become disgruntled with the idiots/newbie's, don't like the changes in music made to accomadate the newer fans, and being cramped together and charged more year after year.

They up sticks and go to another festival.

Festival changed.

[Vieuphoria]

didn't download have some bad riots a year or so back?

[Smally]

didn't download have some bad riots a year or so back?

[Vieuphoria]

ahhh okay fair doos

[rexclark]

Would there be so much trouble if the festival wasn't at the end of August just at the time of exam results being delivered? I'm not saying that the teenagers are to blame but if you moved it to the middle of June would the trouble be so bad? I doubt it. There wouldn't be this end of summer blow out feel about it.

[choadus]

Think this would then clash with Uni exams and GCSE ones, however most certainly would be too near Download and Glasto so less chance of selling as well

[Scuzzball]

I think it's pretty much based on reputation nowadays.

It transcends age, it transcends 'genre' (ie it's not just punk or indie "fans"), it transcends gender.

Because of the history Reading and Leeds has of having a Sunday night blow-out I think most people decide when the tickets go on sale that they're going and they're going for this Sunday night. If they happen to like a band, that's a plus.

There's only so much the stewards can do.

9th year this year, and the first I've been directly affected by the trouble. After my tent was wrecked I just got the shuttle bus into town. There were loads of people kipping in the train station. I think if the shuttle buses are better publicised (I live in Leeds and could've gone home but didn't realise) a lot of people can get away and it'll just be the idiots running around in mostly empty fields.

[eoJ]

The other two I'll give you but T In The Park? There were two attempted murders and two rapes, I think they outweigh any so called riots.

[rockinthecasbah]

My second year at Reading, and the second year I went expecting trouble on the Sunday night, and seeing very little. Last year, though where we were camped (Purple) was relatively quiet, I do remember hearing and seeing big fires from a distance. This year, I was struck by the fact that I was walking through Yellow at about 1am, and seeing almost nothing going down. We were a bit concerned that our spot (again in Purples) might attract some people to start fires, as quite a lot of people had packed up around us, but we stayed up until about half three, and saw nothing. Apparently there were some fires and explosions near us, and Purple was about as bad as it got, but I completely slept through them. Seems that the no nonsense security presence (which was much more visible than in previous years,) had the required effect.

Obviously you can get unlucky at Reading with trouble, and I appreciate that in previous years it's been a lot worse, but I do wonder if some people on here over-dramatise the Sunday night trouble and the amount of idiots at the festival. Certainly I've seen nothing that would put me off going in the future.

[choadus]

well me and all our group of 6 separately agreed reading festival had an angry vibe to it sadly.

Good organisation and awesome music however. As to a chilled out festival I'd say Lowlands is the most relaxed, possibly too relaxed however as everyone is mainly high or away from the campsites raving till 9am.

[silencio]

Some lads were outside my tent on saturday night (this was in Orange at Leeds), pushing and shoving each other into it and laughing about how they were gonna jump on it.

I got out and told them to piss off, so they then went ahead and totally destroyed someone's gazebo.

And this was on saturday night. So glad I went home on sunday night, some idiots set fire to my mates tent with them in it.

I agree with everyone here it's not an age thing, it's a non music fan thing. I think I'm gonna go Glasto next year instead, which is a shame cos I always prefer the Leeds line up. Can't be doing with such a horrible atmosphere again though.

[rexclark]

Really? I didn't know it was that bad, I thought it was pretty chilled out. Mind you, at reading, there was a rape or two, wasn't there? (not to mention the people who got their tents thrown onto the fire while they were in them)

Any ideas for any other chilled out festivals?