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A brief account of my failed Glastonbury 2016 break in attempt
🕑 Added 2019-12-31 15:44:32 +0000 UTCMy plan was to scale the 5 metre fence with an extendable ladder that i bought on eBay for £30. Despite every road, path and farm track within a mile of the fence absolutely crawling with security, I managed to Mission my way through the fields in the pitch black, getting torn to shreds by brambles, ripping my clothes, head to toe in stingy nettles and wet from the waist down after falling in a boggy ditch. (I had been getting pissed at a village pub where the locals warned me not to bother but applauded my gumption)
Eventually, the noise of the festival getting ever nearer, I came to a wigwam glamping field where I had no choice but to attempt to run past the security, who chased me through the wigwams where i lost them and promptly darted into a really steep wood, just south of the fence. In the process I had to drop my ladder out of fear of being caught up, but I was now yards from the fence and it's many watch towers, hiding in the brambles, with a huge spot light right shining right at me every now and then. The drop was too steep to scale so I retreated momentarily back into the wigwam field after about 30 minutes of hiding. But the security had been waiting and were ready to pounce. I ran from them again, this time diving into a huge patch of stinging nettles on the edge of the wood and pulling them over me to hide myself. After 2 minutes, they found me, telling me that if I'd have walked 2 metres further than that I would have fallen down a small cliff. I soon won them over as they escorted me to the holding pen tent for fellow breakers in and people who are overdosing on drugs. Here I was detained for 3 hours before being driven to Glastonbury town centre where I slept in the doorway of BetFred for an hour and awoke to the sound of a somerset dustbin man exclaiming "have you heard, we've left the EU.."
They head of security told me that about 200 people had tried to break in thus far (Thursday night) and none had succeeded. I might try again in 2020...
Comments
Don Barbour - Supreme Leader
It was so easy when I did it. Literally just came upon a hole under. Turned up alone one year when I must have been about 19, had loads of friends inside, random Italian gave me a leg over then I just climbed the internal fence and ran into the event, security gave up as soon as I was running through the camping area.
Connor B
Reading this now is even funnier with that ending. Class.
Pete H
I forgot one other bit, we gave all our bags to the smallest girl in our group and paid a scouser £10 for a borrowed ticket to get in (which he'd probably mugged from someone...), he got back in via the fence and took the ticket back. This poor girl who was like a stick and about 5ft tall had to carry 5 peoples tents and all their bags. It was kind of hysterical, the scousers loaded her up all sides with bags, she literally couldn't hold anything more. She waddled about 5 metres through the entrance, just made it past security and collapsed, then we ran to rescue her lol. Crazy times, what were we thinking?
Pete H
I got in back in 2000, it was the last year before they really improved the security. They had built a huge fence about 5 metres high, then put two medium size fences about 4 metres tall either side of the main fence, so you'd have to get over all 3 before they chased you down. Sounds impenetrable, but there was a fatal flaw. The two medium fence were the cheaper lighter weight mesh style. With a bit of brute force from 2-3 people you could push them over and lean them against the main fence, which made a perfect slope to get up the top of the main fence. The drop was a bit scary, it's high from up there, but thankfully no broken ankles. Somebody had made a hole on the fence on the other side, although you could probably push it over again if there was enough of you. I'm glad they increased the security after that though. The event was terrible, people were getting mugged all over the place. If you left your tent somebody would just come along take all your stuff and start selling it on the road right next to it. I mean literally pick up your whole tent like a bag and walk off. You couldn't approach them as they were clearly in a gang that had come together for a weekend of thieving. Mainly scouser's and they looked extremely unfriendly. We were scared to leave our tent, we didn't go anywhere unless there was at minimum of 3 of us together, and we tried to leave someone at the tent at all times. I mean some of the thieves started ruffling through one of the girls bags while we were in the tent trying to have a daytime nap. I remember a woman running to us for help saying someone had snatched her bag and ran off, my first reaction was to step back and look all around very suspiciously about a stranger approaching us. Was this was a scam? We were the next victims? Actually she really was a victim, but that's how on edge we were. It really ruined the weekend.
Jago Bailey-Brown
Shouldn’t be too hard this year!...
tom davies
Glastonbury is arguably the most legendary / revered music festival in the world, about 2 million people apply for tickets and only 200,000 get in (i think that's about right) people used to jump the fence in their thousands years ago, but in 2001 the owner built a huge 5 metre tall wall and spent millions on security and as a result it's insanely hard to break into. So naturally I thought I'd give it a go!
Caleb Rinard
Sorry, but what is the significance of this place?
tom davies
Haha hindsight is a wonderful thing..
tom davies
Not just yet but who knows one day maybe I'll rerun my 2014 London to Budapest cycle trip which passed through Bruges!
James
I hope you had put a winning bet on the result of the referendum whilst in that BetFred doorway Tom.
Robin Taillaert
Do you have anything planned in Belgium mate? If you happen to be near Bruges for an adventure you can hit me up for help or whatever!
tom davies
Pretty sure they were fairly private farmers fields, full of crops and what not. You gotta stick to the footpaths in those sorts of places, but as for the security, certain factions of them (I think they were black range rovers) seemed to have a pretty big authoritative presence. They hold you till the morning, then dump you far away so that you can't try again that night. They handle it all themselves and don't get the police involved, thankfully!
Matt
Wonder how the Right to Roam act works with all this? I guess with it being private land it doesn’t. Obviously didn’t deem it serious enough to involve the police!
