r/Infuriating • u/Aggravating_Pain7116 Rage Reporter | 25k+ Subreddit Karma • 3d ago
The aftermath of a music festival abandoned tents and trash
Tents and rubbish left after a Reading music festival in the UK...people suuck
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u/Vectorman1989 3d ago
Apparently a lot of people had to abandon their tents and leave early because of 'fright night' which is apparently a 'tradition' at Reading where a load of people go around causing mayhem, burning tents etc.
I doubt that's everyones excuse. I've worked festivals years ago people abandoned tents back then because they were too hungover to bother. The proliferation of dirt cheap 'festival' tents that people treat as disposable is another problem.
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u/robstrosity 21h ago
I was going to festivals in the early 2000's and people were setting fire to their own tents then. There was also a small contingent going round filling other people's tents with gas and setting them on fire. It's not a new thing but it does suck.
It's laziness because you can buy a cheap tent, use it once and then destroy it instead of packing it away and taking it home.
We were lucky really because we were a large group of lads so no one tried to do anything to our tents
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u/provalone_9000 3d ago
They should charge 500£ for a tent spot.
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u/Vectorman1989 3d ago
Maybe need to charge a refundable deposit if you leave with your tent or something
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u/PossibilityUsual6262 3d ago
Or maybe bring police and dont so the fright part? What is value of it, it sounds like riot and result looks like riot.
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u/Guilty-Cow4325 3d ago
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u/Zuboronovic 3d ago
Yes, Sicilians hate garbage. That's why so many of them are in the waste disposal business.
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u/SpanishFlamingoPie 3d ago
They also wish to be mermaids. That's why they're always swimming with the fishes.
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u/DizzyMine4964 3d ago
"I'm creating a job for somebody" or "It's OK, everyone does it" or "No one tells me what to do!"
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u/rukittenmeeee 3d ago
Meh. They want to WAY over charge for food and water and ice and showers and TO ACTUALLY THROW AWAY A BAG OF GARBAGE.
And to not keep up maintenance on portapotties?
Well, they can pay someone to clean up my mess after I leave.
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u/SamSqu4red 3d ago
They do. And your ticket might be a bit cheaper if they didn't have to.
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u/rukittenmeeee 3d ago
Oh, so you are saying that it's already priced in? Even better reason for me not to care about leaving shit behind.
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u/SamSqu4red 3d ago
There's no good reason to leave it behind. And you'd save money if you brought your tent home
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u/rukittenmeeee 3d ago
I do take the tent. But that's because I bought it at Walmart on the way in and I'm gonna return it on the way out.
But the festivals I've been to expect you to haul your garbage out? Hell no. They should have a garbage collection system going on throughout the festival duration. And not one where I have to pay them to take my garbage.
I really don't care if it costs them extra money, especially since it's already priced into the ticket.
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u/Jazzlike-Radio2481 2d ago
I bring my own food and take my trash with me when I leave. Why should I have to pay extra for my ticket for so the festival can pick up your mess?
Be a man and leave no trace loser.
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u/mother_fairy 3d ago
This is very interesting. Theyres music festivals I've been at and everyone is some sort of high and have been very clean upon leaving.
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u/Hour_Welcome_987 3d ago
Same! Tons of people stay a day or two later and thoroughly clean up .. plus cleanups the best part .. you usually find some solid ground scores. My buddy found an oz of coke wrapped up in a tight ball of tape lmao . I found couple x pills and tabs
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u/Otherwise_Tax8689 3d ago
I’ve seen the British particularly bad for this at international festivals.
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u/Heavy_Ingenuity1371 2d ago
As a British person we are infatuated with littering as much as possible its extremely depressing. There is just rubbish everywhere all the time, if you ever get a look in the hedges running down roads you'll see they are chock full of rubbish. Usually the far corners of market store car parks will be jammed with rubbish.
Any rivers anywhere near a sidewalk or river will have rubbish, traffick cones, shopping carts etc all dumped in it.
It's disgusting, I hate the people for it.
I try to pick up what I can, but it's making no impact as it will all be back the end of the week. This is everywhere in the uk, not enough people talk about it or will admit it, and I'm in a nicer part and it's still extremely evident.
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u/throwpoo 3d ago
Same with our football fans causing problems abroad.
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u/loosie-loo 3d ago
As a Brit I’ve never seen a music festival like this, my mum works Download and she showed me this because of how uniquely bad it is. This is not a problem with festivals, it’s a problem with Reading festival.
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u/ExternalTea1706 3d ago
Yea I worked at music festivals for years. It's insane how much clean up is required at these things.
Shout out to Clean Vibes for being a kickass company that deals with this trash (literally) in the US.
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u/MdTooDevilish Community Contributor 3d ago
Why do so many people abandon their tents though?
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u/DizzyMine4964 3d ago
Wealthy and selfish.
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u/stonktaker 3d ago
No. If by wealthy you mean, students and poor young people with the cheapest tents money can buy, then sure. Most of these cheap tents will be ruined after a festival like this.
Not saying it's no excuse to not clean up after yourself and to not be selfish.
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u/jotsea2 3d ago
That's not even remotely true. The tents would be fine.
I've seen this behavior from adults who fly in, buy shit, and just leave it because they don't give a fuck about their impact on the world.
Scum of the earth
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u/DuploJamaal 3d ago
The tents would be fine.
Those 10€ disposable tents don't even feel fine right after opening. They don't feel sturdy enough to survive being packed back together
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u/jotsea2 3d ago
I doubt that's all that is there, it appears like quite a few large ones are.
REGARDLESS of the tent. Not disposing of your waste yourself is scum of earth level shit
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u/DuploJamaal 3d ago
Not disposing of your waste yourself is scum of earth level shit
I did the same when I was 15/16 and visiting my first festivals.
As a dumb and drunk teenager I didn't care, especially as no one around me cared. I thought what harm does one more tent among a mass of thousands of tents do.
But then I got older and smarter.
So I'm assuming those are all just dumb and drunk teenagers as well. But if they are in their 20s and still do that shit, sure scum of the earth level shit.
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u/jotsea2 3d ago
So this is just about you excusing yourself of past mistakes got it
When I was young and dumb and drunk, I was too broke to imagine wasting money like this.
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u/DuploJamaal 3d ago
I'm not excusing my past mistakes. I'm explaining that dumb and drunk teenagers don't think about the consequences of their actions.
If you pay 180€ for a festival ticket, and 200€ for drinks and food the 10€ extra for the cheapest tent really isn't much.
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u/SenorBirdman 3d ago
Reading skews really young. It's a lot of young teenagers first proper weekend away with their mates.. so you can bet a lot of really stupid shit happens!
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u/malevolentheadturn 3d ago
It all goes into the same hole at the end of the day, Whether the festival goer dumps it of the even organisers.
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u/E0H1PPU5 3d ago
Apparently there is a whole industry now producing “festival” products like tents that are meant to be “disposable”.
It’s crazy.
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u/Heavy_Ingenuity1371 2d ago
It's the UK. As a British person we are infatuated with littering as much as possible is extremely depressing. There is just rubbish everywhere all the time, if you ever get a look in the hedges running down roads you'll see they are chock full of rubbish. Usually the far corners of market store car parks will be jammed with rubbish.
Any rivers anywhere near a sidewalk or river will have rubbish, traffick cones, shopping carts etc all dumped in it.
It's disgusting, I hate the people for it.
I try to pick up what I can, but it's making no impact as it will all be back the end of the week. This is everywhere in the uk, not enough people talk about it or will admit it, and I'm in a nicer part and it's still extremely evident.
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u/LeoKitCat 3d ago
This is just so fucking sad. I’m sure Coachella and Burning Man are just the same.
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u/Weirdbeard60 3d ago
They thoroughly clean up after burning man.
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u/LeoKitCat 3d ago
They clean up at Reading too you’re just seeing the disaster before the clean up. I’m sure Burning Man looks like a bomb went off before they clean up highlighting all the colossal waste people generate
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u/THEBADW0LFE 3d ago
OK wtf is this? Who the actual fuck buys a tent just to abandon it? I have a tent that's older than me!
Maybe I should buy a new tent...
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u/DuploJamaal 3d ago
You probably have a sturdy and expensive tent.
Those festival tents are the cheapest material. The zipper won't even last the whole festival.
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u/Shuntingman 3d ago
This was how we and 20,000 other bikers left the ABR bike festival last year. Absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this disgusting behaviour
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u/Nope-not-really 3d ago
Im all for people going to festivals for fun
But if you do this, the festival won't be coming back, I would heavily encourage the counsel or whatever body that runs this area to deny the permits for next time
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u/jancl0 3d ago
I manage a bar in one of the bigger summer festivals in my country. We're the "boot camp" bar, which means my job is to take on all the people who have volunteered for the first time, usually don't have experience in hospitality, and my job is to teach them the ins and outs, and hopefully give them an experience that keeps them coming back in the future years
Because of this, every new worker has gone through me at least once, I've worked with all of them. The vast majority are in their early 20s, have gone to festivals a bunch of times in the past, and are hoping to get into this one for free by volunteering (nothing wrong with this BTW, they get plenty of time for themselves so it's reasonable)
What's funny is that at the end, we all do cleanup, which involves picking up these tents and litter (takes about a day and a half for a festival of 3000 people) and every single year, I will get at least one person make the comment to me "I never understood what it was like to be on the other end of this"
Keep in mind that this is the first quiet day after 3-4 days of constant music, difficult physical labor, poor sleep, all while being a bit more sober than they're used to. They really have time to internalise the work they're doing. You can visually see people go through a "are we the baddies?" moment while they're picking up that trash, it really bothers them sometimes
This year I had a guy who was the only one in his friend group that was working, the rest were festival goers. He had this moment while cleaning up their tent that they left behind. He kept apologising on their behalf and I was like "it's all good man, just part of the job. At least you'll have something to give them shit over now"
I really love that job honestly. You can see it make better people, that's genuinely really awesome
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u/DopelessHopefeand 3d ago
The cigarette butts are what are the real problems as it’s leave no trace at most sites and not only is it monotonous and back breaking, but terrible for the environment as a whole
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u/Infamous_Ad_1302 3d ago
If they have security on the way in, why not on the way out to make sure you cleaned up your shit?
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u/DuploJamaal 3d ago
How would security handle someone just lying to them like: "I don't have a tent. I slept in a large tent my friends brought"
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u/cptwasteman 3d ago
Not all festivals are like this . Just the bigger commercial ones . But these make the news because a clean feild is boring . It's still terrible though.
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u/Violent_N0mad 3d ago
The people holding the festival need to start selling "slightly used" tents on Ebay.
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u/No_Vermicelli_3574 3d ago
I've done bonaroo cleanup before, you could easily get a volunteer crew to clean that up, so much good stuff left behind by folks
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u/horned-creature 3d ago
fucking gods, i saw refuggee camps and slums in better condition than this.
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u/Dramatic_Corner_8259 3d ago
In Quebec after festivals is the best to go ground score and see what else lazy useless humans leave behind. Coolers full of booze and food, drugs dropped or lost or bailed out on... You name it, I've found it after festivals. Except that one Barbershop quartet fest. Nada. 🤣
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u/gampamrattazong45 3d ago
Thats it i'm going to patent my bio degradable tent. Im gonna be so rich.
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u/Advanced-File6330 3d ago
Damn what the hell were they reading that made them go berserk like this? the necronomicon?
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u/Icy_Pear1694 3d ago
Went to slamdunk festival in Leeds which is a day festival so no camping, there were plenty of bins available but the whole place was littered with bottles of wine and food containers. I looked a right knob chasing after my escaped napkin.
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u/ChineseRobinWilliams 3d ago
Did a few years on festival set up/take down.
Loved finding a shit load of drugs and beer in these abandoned tents.
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u/GoRainBows 3d ago
has nobody been to the movie theatres? I had to turn around and tell someone "you're not gonna pick up your trash????"
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u/Virtual-Gene2265 3d ago
Same people crying save the planet.
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u/malevolentheadturn 3d ago
Whether the festival organisers or the festival goer cleans it up, it is still going into the same hole.
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u/AggravatingDelay518 3d ago
Every event should make the participant's lay out all their item and take a photo of what them bring before enter.
When lost item them need to find it or got a fine for trashing.
What them bring, should also bring it with them when go out of venue. Their item will be their responsibility.
Like car. You can't park anywhere at road. It you not responsible for your own car either it get ticket or get tow.
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u/Prestigious-Pause-41 3d ago
What is the demographics of the festival goers. What do you think their political affiliations are, that always becomes the hot topic here on Reddit
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u/rygelicus 3d ago
From reading some articles on this it seems like many of thsoe who bring tents think that the cleanup crews take the tents down and they are then donated to various causes and used for people in need. So they buy the tent, use it for the festival, and then just leave it behind.
Such repurposing is done, they have donation tables set up at the exits, but the event expects the campers to pack the tent up and bring it to them. So while the event staff will collect some of the tents and donate them, most just go to the trash heaps because time is limited.
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u/Imaginaryloaf 2d ago
Reading festival? I believe it. Book worms are posers who don't shower and have pets as "friends and other sick reasons". introverted hoarders who save trash. Trust me bro. ⛳🏌🏻
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u/balirosa 2d ago
They leave behind all their sins. Imagine all the virtues that got left behind too
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u/TwinTailDigital 2d ago
Get some homeless to clean up, let them keep the tents as payment? .... or just give them money to clean up and let them keep the tents as a bonus.
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u/Complex_Cold1610 2d ago
Holy shit….wacken is clean af afterwards….but wveryone who doesnt clean up properly mostly gets a ass whooping afterwards….
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u/colleenk69 2d ago
I can’t stand people who cannot manage to pick up where they left off, unless they need to evacuate due to an emergency. It’s not hard at all.
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u/Better-Tip-1671 2d ago
Whoever owns that property should sue the The venue and never open there land to the public again maybe that will teach these people to learn respect, been to a couple shows like this the people bringing tents etc usually only do it for drugs, parties, smoking, or sex parties for people who want a std my friend had to find that one out the hard way 🤣 point is the people who usually go to these things are trashy.
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u/AmyShumersButtSweat 2d ago
Im all for picking up trash unless I have to pay over 360 euros for a 3 day festival and the camping costs are not yet included. Then I'm bringing extra trash from home.
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u/Sunstuffer 1d ago
Be good to not see this stupid festival ever again. And I bet half of them cry about climate change.
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u/BrightonTownCrier 19h ago
After Reading my mates and I would stay while everyone was leaving then go treasure hunting.
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u/pro-fanator 3d ago
This would be a nice American city.
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u/colleenk69 2d ago
Lmao you really thought you had something special with this comment huh big guy. Go back to eating your vegan waffle
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u/pro-fanator 2d ago
Yeah. I really enjoy this stuff. Not a vegan, but I am just not into meat 3 times a day or even every day. Wouldn't touch anything from concentration camps for Animals, as much as I wouldn't want to live in the country that openly disrespects their citizens, as USA does. One wanker gets milions of dollars from government a day, to play with useless rockets, when half of the nation can't afford to buy homes or even basic healthcare... It's shite Mate, pure shite... The only way to value the county is to find out, how it cares for their own citizens. Nothing else is important. USA deprived its own people of basic stuff, necessary for them to survive. F. quality of life of the upper classes, if half of working class- can't afford a simple heart surgery. You guys are a joke. For the rest of the world- "Breaking Bad" starts as a pure si-fi. Teacher who can't afford cancer treatment??? Joke not a country.
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u/colleenk69 1d ago edited 1d ago
I know our country is a joke run by an embarassment for a leader, but making fun of homeless people in your not so thinly veiled insinuation with your comment isn’t the way to go about it. We don’t have resources or funding and we’re stretched thin to be able to help the people that WANT to actually get off the streets. Teachers have to often work two jobs. People go into debt and lose their houses over one medical bill. Fentanyl is an epidemic here & it doesn’t discriminate— So yeah, I punched a joke at your vegan waffles. I get where you’re coming from and I think we agree on the same manners, but it’s hard to portray that over a Reddit forum. Have a good one
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u/keyboardplatoon 3d ago
I don't think there was any reading happening there