Arsehole Security At Festivals

I understand that the moral majority with their ignorant lives find it hard to understand youth culture. I understand that for many the idea of 15000 people getting wrecked in a field listening to loud repetitive beats is such an alien concept that it may actually appear threatening or dangerous. I understand that for the neighbouring villages of large outdoor music events the increased traffic and noise can probably be considered a disturbance.

I can understand these viewpoints, but that doesnt mean to say i think they are right. When an event costs £125 a ticket, its fair to expect a certain amount of freedom, after all decent people go to these places to enjoy themselves, to get away from the endless monotony of day to day life. In this particular case i am referring to Glade Festival but this could apply to any number of similar events.

What i find hard to understand is the logic that security at this festival need to be as bad as they are. Upon arriving at the site we were engulfed by a gang acting like hustlers clearly intent on trying to see what they could confiscate. The fact that we ended up haggling over how much of our beer they were going to take only made the whole situation even worse. I use the word "gang" here intentionally because thats exactly how they behaved, not like the reasonable responsible agents of the law they are surely meant to be.

So what kind of logic goes into this decision? I know its not the organisers idea to employ these wannabe thugs, they know as well as we do that the best people for the job are the sort of people that attend these events. Clearly some sort of authority has decided that tougher security is required. I just cannot understand how anyone smart enough to be in a position of authority could really think that security like that should placed in such a role.

Worse still, though was the sheer number of security guards wandering around the place Saturday night, no doubt looking to see what else they could confiscate and how much force they could use in the process. All those hi-vis jackets (once a classic piece of raving attire) create a real feeling of tension and paranoia at the event.

Well, clearly at festies, clubs, free-parties etc there is a lot of activities that are (unfairly and wrongly) illegal. I'm not going to get into a discussion about the law here. But the powers at be make a lot of money out of taxes and licenses through these events, even (albiet indirectly) through free-parties, so they are in no great hurry to stop them happening. But by treating us this way, the message is clear:

WHAT WE ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL AND WRONG!!!!

These thugs are employed for one real purpose, to try and spoil our weekends. They are there to remind us that the system is more powerful than us, that we must ultimately conform and that the few pleasures we allow ourselves to indulge in should be avoided in order to fit in with society and the system.

Every time a free-party gets shut down, every time another noise restriction gets put in place, every time another mind-enhancing substance gets criminalized, we are reminded that we are the outcasts, the outlaws. Freedom only really exists for those that do not want us to be free.

However, we can still challenge the system, many of us do every day in our own little way. Morality is the only law that really matters in this world and i know myself and many people like me are on the right side of it.