The mess after the festival

Theres one more thing, and I missed the edit window...

I live in a semi-urban environment. Just a few miles from here, there are woodlands and farming areas, but for the most part my life is spent on concrete, asphalt, and other forms of paving. I am surrounded by modernity and artificiality on a near constant basis in my normal, daily comings and goings. I remember when I was a child and on camping trips with my parents. We used to visit places, like Hastings, and various places in Wales, as well as Mersea Island, near Colchester.

We camped at proper campsites and so on, with shower blocks, but we also camped out on fields owned by farmers, who would rent out space to campers. Some of these places were so beautiful, so remote, that if I had dropped even a gum wrapper on them, I would have felt like a total bastard.

Climbing the mountains of Wales, walking moorlands, exploring woodlands and investigating ruins on the side of remote hilltop roads, is a total departure from the dirt and greyness of the every day life that I had been living, and still live. There is something so freeing and wonderful about being surrounded by verdant hills, trees, animals of the forest and even livestock. I would hazard that I have never had a bad day out in the countryside. Now, the festival I go to is in a rural area, on an estate which is part of the grounds of Catton Hall in Derbyshire. It would be a beautiful place to walk through at any time of the year, and is sometimes used for animal husbandry of a sort. This year, there were droppings from what was probably sheep or something similar, in evidence, so I imagine that whatever normally resides there, is moved off for the duration of the festival, and bought back when the music, people and their stuff have been removed, after the festival is done.

I would feel awful if something I had left somewhere, anywhere I have ever pitched my tent, were to wind up harming an animal, or the natural habitat in any way. I do not want to be responsible for a beautiful place, becoming less beautiful over time. I want to leave my campsite the way I found it, a welcoming green pasture, absent the muck that humans generate. I cannot do much about what others do, but I am determined not to be responsible for the decimation of beautiful things and places.

originally posted by: ketsuko
I don't care how "cheap" you think the tent is. It's a tent! You paid good money for it. Why on earth would you leave it?!

I don't understand that kind and degree of throwaway mentality at all.

I'll be slated for this but instead of lying and making out I'm a fine upstanding citizen like the rest in this thread I may as well be honest.
If I can afford to buy another tent and I'm coming down from a crazy 3 or 4 nights partying when it's packing up time, yep I'll leave it where it is. And I don't care either.
Take Glastonbury, now one of the most over-commercialised festivals in the UK, the bands make their money, Michael Eavis the owner of the farm makes his money, and they use volunteer clean up crews who do it for their free tickets, and food.
No children starve because I dump my tent, no animals suffer either as the ground is litter picked to the square inch. I know because I've done the clean up crew thing myself a couple of years.
Most of the festivals in my region actually redistribute the tents to homeless charities as well so you could argue a benefit there. Fact, the homeless group in my area got over 100 tents for people from Glasto this year.

So yep, feel all warm and glowing inside for 'doing the right thing' but this isn't littering in a public place, it is the expected detritis from a festival which organisors budget for and is part of their strategic plan to get the licence to hold it in the first place.
Oh, and I go to festivals to dance and get off my head, not to campaign for whales or greenpeace, so no hypocrisy from me either. If they didn't have the clean-up crews and there was a risk to spoiling somewhere beautiful then I'd take everything away, same as when I attend illegal outdoor raves in beauty spots - leave nothing but footprints, but a commercial enterprise which budgets for it, nah, I'll dump that tent because I can afford it and my rough head can't be arsed packing it up.
Festival ticket prices wouldn't come down if everyone took their tents away, if you think that then sorry, but I'll chuckle to myself thinking you are a bit naive.

Flame away, I don't care, far more troubling things in the world to rant about than commercial enterprises having to clean up after festivals.

a reply to: TrueBrit
Bloodstock festival which you go to is just as trashed as any other, and the organisers employ www.estatecleaners.co.uk... to get the place back to pristine condition after the event. No animals will be harmed by the rubbish which is quickly removed, and they only get their licence to host the event on condition the place is returned to its natural state.
Again, if you think ticket prices would come down if everyone removed their trash then you are in dreamworld fella.

...but carry on being outraged that a commercial enterprise has to clean up after its guests.
I'm with you regarding illegal free parties where the local authority has to clean up, and I litter pick after any I attend, especially if my mates ran the gig, but your outrage regarding commercial festivals seems silly and a bit drama queen to me as if animals will die lol.

What is it with so many people nowadays intent on turning every single thread into a left / right discussion?
It really is getting very tedious.

As has been said; people just can't be arsed to clean up after themselves after two or three days of partying.
I suppose it could also be argued that its symptomatic of a deeper malaise within our society.

I like two, three even four man tents all for myself at festivals and rallies - I like my space - so there's no chance of me leaving a tent.
I guess I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't left other stuff behind - not clever really.

originally posted by: FreebornAs has been said; people just can't be arsed to clean up after themselves after two or three days of partying.
I suppose it could also be argued that its symptomatic of a deeper malaise within our society.

I'm honest and just call it laziness. Either the 'volunteers' who get free tickets and food will clean it up, or the organisers employ a private company to do it as a condition of their licence to host the festival.
I have mates who run a few festivals locally around the mid thousands of patrons, they have to budget the clean-up as part of their business plan to get the licence from local authorities. The outrage is ridiculous, it is part of the gig to make it happen.
So it's wasteful, but it could easily be argued that in a free market that only increases sales of tents, and has a secondary benefit of homeless charities getting free tents for street sleepers.
Nope, I defy the holier than thou folk in this thread being all sanctimonious about non-problems when the festival organisers still make their profit, and conform to all local authority rules to obtain the licence for the festival.
Nobody is harmed by people dumping their tents, aside from the Asian kids who probably make the tents for less than UK minimum wage.
...I don't claim to fight the sweatshop multinational industry of Asian workers though, maybe their children would starve if we stopped dumping our tents at festivals?

a reply to: Kandinsky

I worked several years on tour with waste management at UK festivals and the levels of waste are insane.

One reading festival a few years we separated the folding camping chairs and removed the canvas to weigh in the metal and got over 18 tones just from those alone.

I like the mess as the amount of salable items left behind not to mention the thousands of cans of beer and tinned food abandoned meant that when the festivals ended it was time to hole down for the winter and live primarily of free food and beer and eBay sales of stuff collected over the season.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

It has gotten worse since the big shops got involved with festival tent sales.

Halfords do a deal now where you pay about 30 quid for a tent, chair and sleeping bag and get a receipt. They have a stand at the festival and you collect direct to save having to carry it with you and most kids just treat it as a disposable item. When it is 8 quid for a burger and a fiver a pint it's really not worth taking a single skin useless tent home.

a reply to: nonspecific

Weighing in. Man, I never thought about that angle! Put like that, yes, tonnes of cash-in.

At Leeds and Glasto they had scores of East-European workers do the picking from Monday onwards. Night shifts for security were out looking for valuables before the pickers arrived. I had a few tops and a couple of pricey jackets from Bristol festival and Glasto. I also got several bottles of champagne and wine from media types after working near their compounds.

Based on what you've said, the festivals missed a big opportunity to at least recover some costs for waste in the past. I know it's all priced into the tickets, but gotta squeeze those margins. Money is all, right?

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Actually, if you pay attention to the amount of trash per square yard, its actually less wrecked, meaning that per head, less trash is improperly disposed of. You compare the after shots of Bloodstock to the after shots of Download, Glastonbury, or any other significant festival, its normally less trash per yard. Yes, there are less people there, its a smaller festival, but more people does not compute to more trash by area, only more trash over a greater area, UNLESS the attendees of Bloodstock are simply a little more responsible about this crap, than the attendees of other festivals.

That shot there, appears to have been taken in Midgard camp, which is the one in which I tend to pitch. If that was a shot of Glastonbury or Download, I would expect to see WAY more tents and trash over the same area.

Now... you say that no animals will be harmed because everything will be taken away... No it won't. The trash that is visible, cans, bottles, bags of rubbish, bits of flyers and packaging, the tents and so on, yes, they will be taken away. But there is way more than meets the eye there. There are going to be countless tens of thousands of cigarette ends, hidden under blades of grass, absolutely heaps of beer can rings, smashed into the damp earth and buried by the footfalls of countless patrons, tent pegs that are easily missed by the naked eye, even a keen one. I know how estate cleaning companies work, and they do not perform a forensic level tear down of an area to ensure total collection of all non-native materials. They do a damned fine job, but they are not capable of removing all of the material present, only the material which is readily visible from a standing position. These things and others, can and do cause damage to wildlife and livestock, which is why, when the basics of camping are taught to a child, they are told to take everything they bought with them, and all the trash they generate, away when they leave a site.

And I am not suggesting that ticket prices would DECREASE necessarily as a result of tidier conditions being left by the patrons at the end, but I do know for a fact that the messier things are left, the more time the estate cleaners spend on it, the greater the eventual cost of their operation, which is a cost passed on to the organisers and is reflected in the next years ticket price. While prices will not necessarily decrease if the site is left in better condition, they will not rise as fast as they might otherwise, if care is taken by patrons to take responsibility for their rubbish. If I can do it, while smashed out of my head on cider and other unmentionable things, then it shouldn't be too much to ask.

a reply to: nonspecific
I didn't know Halfords did that these days, lol, those tents will just be looked at as throwaway items for sure.
Truth is though tents have always been dumped at festivals, especially when the great British weather decreed it to be a muddy one.
I have only been to Glasto twice since 'the steel wall' was introduced. It changed the ambience big time when the crazy nutters could no longer get in for free. With the price of tickets now it seems mostly middle class students and folk who drink Prosecco thinking they are slumming it with party heads.
Nope I stick to small local festy's these days and unauthorised outdoor parties. Curiously though, there is next to no mess after free parties because we clean up after ourselves. I won't claim that to be for altruistic reasons though, more to keep local authorities off our back so we don't get hassled by cops. It seems to work.

a reply to: TrueBrit
Well done to you sir, I've only dumped tents to be honest, all my trash like beer cans etc I stick in the bins. I don't worry about tents because I'm sure there is no record of Michael Eavis's cows getting themselves fouled up in abandoned tents when he lets them back into the fields post festival.
I do own a nice folding tubular steel and canvas stool which I liberated from a festival over 20 years ago. It goes everywhere with me outdoors, even watching school sports days etc when my son was little. I've also got a few camping cookers and mess tins etc over the years from people who dumped theirs.
I'm with you on personal responsibility for actual rubbish, but the outrage for abandoned tents, nope, not so much.
The ultimate responsibility has always rested with the festival organisers who have to get a site back to its original condition if they want the licence for next year.
I'm also sure that if there was a problem of animals getting injured then the site owners would take that into consideration when deciding to allow use of the land or not.
Business is all it is, no matter how much a festival is dressed up to be for humanitarian causes or whatever.

Business for the organisers, and an opportunity to get off my nut in public for me without fear of falling foul of public order legislation lol

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

an opportunity to get off my nut in public for me without fear of falling foul of public order legislation lol

I can absolutely agree with you on that point! Haha!

a reply to: TrueBrit
Off-topic but as an aside, I've never done a 'metal' festival because I've always been more of an electronic dance music kind of guy, but I was dragged to a metal night at a club in Plymouth a few years ago.
What a laugh, once I found my beat I really got into the crazy 'jumping into each other' style of dancing!
Madness I tell thee but a brilliant laugh and I'd do it again in a heartbeat...it's like fighting without punching each other, totally changed my opinion of the genre and sub-culture.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Its a good lark!

I must confess though, I gave all that up when I was about twenty five. I realised I was shelling out money to see bands, but seeing a whirling melee of a mosh instead, and frankly, if I am going to spend my money, I want to see the band I paid to see. I appreciate the craft of what they are doing, so I like to watch their performance closely, for the little details you easily miss if busy running about like a loony. That being said, I headbang like crazy sometimes still, so I still miss things here and there.

But as I have matured, I have learned to appreciate the stagecraft aspect of metal performances a great deal more, and pay more attention to them now than I used to.



I think people get the wrong idea about the mosh, from an external perspective though. Its not a bunch of people trying to hurt eachother, its just a bunch of people going absolutely mental for the band and having a laugh! Metalheads are an easily misunderstood bunch though, which I suppose fits with the genre nicely.

a reply to: TrueBrit
Haha totally! I loved the comradery of 'the mosh' all friendly, just madness.
...I'll be dancing until I die though, whatever the genre, I can't imagine a world without dance.
Oh and my 'metal night' definitely dispelled some myths about the scene to me...now to infiltrate a Morris Dancing festival and see if I could get into that or not lol

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Its the good old fashioned shin kicking competitions late at night you want to watch out for. Its all smiles when the bells and the sticks are out, but the moment they pull up their trouser legs and start kicking... yeesh!