Music Festivals '08

That's not good. I'd be really pissed off if I'd gone and came back to find my car in that condition.

The whole festival idea doesn't really appeal to me. Too many cocks going to those events.

 

Especially cos she'd gone back to her car as their tents were trampled down in the night by some other ******s

When you have a big group of friends all camped together and looking out for each other it really is fantastic. I do miss the campsite antics, but I don't think I'd feel safe these days with so many idiots about and not as many people to camp with. We're going to attempt one last Yellow X reunion festival at some point I think. Get all the people who have kids to take a weekend off from parenting and act like teenagers again. Going to take at least a year to organize though I bet!

Back in the good old days we'd take over the entirety of Yellow X/W. Everyone knew each other, so we knew if there was someone dodgy around the tents. We also knew a lot of people working there, so they'd keep an eye out from the fire towers too. Having such a massive group also meant there would always be someone at the campsite no matter what bands were on. Even the idiots back then tended to only hurt themselves or other idiots. Like the bloke we knew who set fire to his face trying to breathe fire... the wind changed direction and he inhaled with shock. He had really bad burns for ages (since killed himself trying to show people the jump he'd made earlier in the evening across 2 buildings, doing it drunk wasn't quite as easy it seems ).

 

what you just said was typical for reading is exactly what is typical for leeds minus ONE year where there was a bit of a riot police stampede thing *shrugs*

 

I'm actually rather glad that I live close enough not to camp, it's weak but I get to have a shower and sleep in my own bed.

Best of both worlds imo.

That wasn't a guy called Fuzzy by any chance? Would have been a couple of years ag now, I don't remember his real name.

 

Same as Only problem is this obsession people have these days with burning tents (I'm sure this didn't happen even a few years ago, but now every festival in the world gets it - possibly not Latitude, but give it time. It's horrible and needs to stop!) cos it'd be nice to leave a tent there so I didn't have to leave the site as often. No way, no how I'm leaving my expensive tent there all alone though, I wouldn't even leave my dodgy Eurohike thing there unattended these days.

I think it could well be (people round here have too many nicknames). It happened in Maidenhead as I recall (the dying bit).

 

That is one ****ed car.

How many others caught that treatment? I assume the ones to the sides took some heat and lost some paint etc, but I can't see left >.>

 

I believe it was 19 burnt out completely and a fair few suffering varying degrees of heat damage. The whole thing sounds very dodgy, it's all hearsay at the moment, but it would seem there was an idiot with a disposable BBQ in his boot (?!) and he drove off as soon as it went a bit wrong. Saving his car. At least he's been arrested though.

There was a picture on-line of the whole car park, but it's not around any more. It looked like a war zone, insane to think it was all caused by one idiot.

 

A few people I know pick up a cheap as chips tent of ebay for a few quid and then couldn't care less what happens to it.

Also this:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/enterta..._video_thousands_watch_loo_block_blaze_on_web

Sounds like the same chap, his mates held his wake at The Bell in Maidenhead.

Small world.

 

I get attached to all inanimate objects so no way I'd even let one of those get burned, not to mention the fact that it's bad for the field that the poor cows live in.

Some of that write up is a little confusing as those loos don't have roofs or bowls... GetReading are known for getting facts wrong though... TBH Reading Council are dying for a reason to get rid of the festival and it'll be a real shame to see it go, but enough locals hate it these days they'll do their best to sabotage it. Stupid really as Reading has absolutely nothing else going for it!

Yep, that's him then. Yeah, madness! Were you camped with us the year he set his face on fire? If you were, I was the really grumpy girl who came back from town to find complete strangers had been told they could camp directly in front of her tent, blocking it off from the rest of the circle... I was not amused!

 

That Get-Reading article is fairly inacurate to say the least... It wasn't thousands of people.. it was a lot, but not a thousand.. And it didn't burn, they just kicked it and tore bits off it...

 

Unsurprising as they've lifted all the quotes straight from the festival forum, probably without permission. This could be the reason why the festival republic forum mods are deleting loads of threads actually...

 

It's not so much intending it to get burned more that if it does get damaged in any way then they're safe in the knowledge that it's not left them too out of pocket. So far the same tent has survived for a few years and hopefully for a few more.

I know you have to take what they say with a pinch of salt but it goes towards the kind of feeling that these kinds of situations create. If a few less people go next year I'm pretty sure that would be better for everyone.

Sadly no, I've not camped for a more than a few years and I was part of a different circle of friends but you never know itis a small town and we may have met in the past.

 

Yeah definitely, I think that year would've been '99. Blimey, that's almost 10 years ago! Hard to believe I've been nearly every year for the past 15 odd years (I missed '97 as I went to '**** Reading' instead ).

Strangely I got talking to Fly on these forums after we realised we'd been camped next to each other at Reading 2000/1

 

I don't want to keep on linking to the car fire stuff, but this video does show the extent of it. Really people need to realise all this damage was caused by 1 disposable BBQ. It's insane. So avoidable. Very shocking.

 

How did a disposable BBQ do all that? Under a petrol tank?

 

Pretty much, according the police report it set the boot of the car on fire (why on earth someone had a BBQ in the boot of their car...), got thrown on the ground, set fire to the very dry straw/grass. They drove their car to safety (nice work), by the time it was reported the undersides of loads of cars were hot enough to go boom. Once one car has gone it's like dominoes when they're that close together. Really shocking. At least one was probably diesel too. They take longer to get going, but burn a lot longer (my cousin burned to death in his diesel car ).

 

Why would you BBQ out the back of your car? Seems like a fairly good recipe for destruction.

 

I was camped in Green, cross over Reaper Bridge and walk along to the right that takes you to the toilets and exit and go along about 20 feet then turn left and about 30 feet in is moi

 

I was camping about 20m from the destruction in indigo camp. Right near the P6 fire-tower and the toilets were not set on fire just the roof had lighter fluid poured on and burnt for a few seconds.

The crowd started by drumming on the toilets then chanting 'angry mob' as some tore the flood lights down, the last light took out the power cable to the fire tower and the surrounding area. Security were driven back with bottles and cans and when the lights were out the mob wrecked the toilets and pulled the roof off. Eventually the crowd went away after they were sprayed with water from the toilet cleaning pump-thing. At least I hope it was water eww.

Was the worst violence I've seen there, normally all the problems are in yellow and green/brown. Luckily we were far enough away for it all to not bother us.

 

I was camped in brown and the worst I saw were people being thrown into tents and bins being drummed. However, I did go walkies and the massive toilet fire in yellow was kinda shocking.