Tents torched at Reading Festival as 50 people are ejected while others leave in fear of violence

40 comments
  1. Been a tradition since I was a kid. Not a good one. But to be expected.

    If you have a nice tent, don’t leave it out at Reading in the red campsite on the Sunday night.

  2. This happens every year, the media writes stories that make it sound like people are lighting tents while people are in them, it’s always just idiots burning their stuff rather than taking it home

  3. They did this when I went about 10 years ago. I seem to remember something happened with the toilets as well, maybe they got pushed over or set on fire? It was the year Kings of Leon headlined and people were constantly singing ‘Whoaaooh, your tent is on fire!’ on the Sunday night. They were also doing this thing where they’d form a line of about 10 people and just trample over people’s tents.

    Definitely always been a shitty vibe on Sunday.

  4. Always happens at Reading, it shouldn’t but it does. Sunday night is chaos with people wandering past asking if they can burn your tent down or waking up to bunring sticks being poked through your tent.

    Constant explosions as gas cylinders and aerosols are blown up, every 30 minutes hearing a siren as an ambulance or fire engine drives through. On top of this all of the camp site staff have ghost busters style fire extinguishers on their backs.

    It’s great fun but so unsafe.

  5. I got trashed at Reading in 92 and awoke to someone trashing my tent and someone screaming. As I emerged someone shouted “why are you in my tent.”

  6. No excuse for being a cunt, especially in this day and age where we actually know better and we should be trying to limit the amount of waste and pollution we make. Fucking knuckle dragging inbreds are the only cunts that would do that shit.

  7. I saw on the news a homeless charity in Leeds was hoping to collect the leftover tents and sleeping bags to distribute.
    Not much good burnt.

  8. I’ll stick to psychedelic festivals where people respect each other and the land. Sounds like hell there

  9. This was a yearly ritual c. 2005 when I used to go.

    We dared not sleep with the tent burnings and beer cans flying through the sky like missiles!

    Crazy days

  10. It’s been happening for years, I went to Leeds back when it was actually good from 2000 till about 2006, after the first 2 years at least 2 of us stayed sober on Sunday, packed up in the morning and headed out after the last bands. It was just crazy, loos on fire, gas being thrown around, people used to rip the temporary lighting poles up and run around with them. Not sure what happens to people on the last day of a festival, or why Woodstock 99 gets all the hate cos it happens everywhere

  11. Go to festivals in Europe (well in my own experience in Italy). It’s a festival experience for grown ups. No fighting, no hooliganism and the food and drink are both better quality and more affordable.

    The difference is tangible.

    Mind you I didnt camp there….I’m too old for that shit and hotels were cheap.

  12. The 2005 Reading Riots were mad. They flipped a burger van and set fire to those crazy swimming pool style toilets.

  13. I was there. It was carnage thought almost every campsite bar white. The demographic needs to change, I believe it should be an 18+ event. I’d say a good 95% of the people there were between the ages of 16-18, some of them looked even younger than that. Throw in the drink and drugs and you get this situation. Why fires were allowed in the camp rules and firewood actively sold on site I will never know.

  14. Lots of selfish idiots in this thread who seem to think “we recklessly endanger people and commit criminal damage every year brah” is some kind of acceptable justification for being a dreadful person.

  15. I was there yesterday (fuck you Rage Against The Machine). I had guest tickets so was talking to a medic backstage. He was saying there was organised fights between the different camp sites, people were throwing oxygen canisters onto fires, general carnage. He also said there was a ‘ket Olympics’ were kids were competing to see who could do the most ketamine. I felt like an old man in the crowds (am 42).

  16. I went in 96, 98 and 99 and tents were burnt by their owners who didn’t want to carry them home. Also it was always tradition to knock over the toilets and sometimes burn those too…

  17. Bestival is family friendly. Do dropped bottle caps, no drunken idiots.
    Would recommended.
    Buy a programme so you can avoid all the kid relation events/acts

  18. PANIC!!!

    PANIC!!!!!

    IT IS THE END TIMES!!!!!!

    GRAB MY ROSE TINTED GLASSES WE NOW LIVE IN A DYSTOPIAN FUTURE WHERE NOBODY CAN REMEMBER LAST TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  19. It’s so eye-opening to see the difference between this comment section and the one on Notting Hill carnival.

    This one has commenters talking about torching tents being a tradition, a yearly ritual, talking about media exaggeration – whilst the Notting Hill carnival commenters talk about ‘feral’ people and how the festival should be cancelled.

    You don’t have to think too hard as to why there’s a discrepancy 🤔

  20. Where are all the people in this sub who usually turn up to comment about the demographics of the group whenever there’s a story about violent mobs?

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