DW: Around 100,000 people attended Reading Festival in the UK last weekend. This is what they left behind.
Yes, the tents were apparently also abandoned as they can be bought cheap and nobody cares. All that goes to landfill or gets burned.
UK is largely vaccinated and the festival required negative test (which some people undoubtedly faked) or vaccination certificate.
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2021-08-26/how-covid-safe-is-reading-festival
The article mentions a 40k festival where 1000 people tested positive for COVID-19, and case fatality rate in UK is now 0.5% as everyone older is vaccinated. Reading was 100k, so ~2k possible cases, which gives ~10 potential deaths from COVID-19.
@kravietz Twenty years ago, a tent was an expensive thing. Tents would have patches where tears and rips had been repaired after years of use. Now they're a single-use item, and then they move on as clean biomass.
That's the problem — it's carbon fiber, plastic and metal, none of which decomposes, and burns dirty.
@kravietz I'm a bit cynical about 'clean biomass' even under the best of circumstances :)
@kravietz Some festivals work with non-profits to collect anything that is still in good shape so it can be donated to people who need it, but it's a pity that the largest festivals in the world either can't or won't do so
@kravietz
wtf! how is it even possible to gather so many irresponsible people into one area?
@rogatywieszcz
No! Living in or visiting Reading does not automatically mean frequently reading of books!
@kravietz
@kravietz that's what usually happens at festivals sadly. I hate to show my bias, but my assumption is that there's a large overlap between people that do this and the ones that scoff at people that don't separate their trash.
@kravietz This is a sign of either too cheap a tent or people that don't care about money.
Those aren't tents for under 10 bucks and even then, those aren't cents.
@alsternerd @kravietz a "weekend ticket" to this festival was >230GBP.
@kravietz haben die da wirklich so viele einfach ihr Zelt stehen lassen und sind ohne weg gegangen 😱
If any of the people listed under
https://www.readingfestival.com/lineup
hold environmentalist views, now would probably an appropriate time to voice them, directed at their fanbase.
I don't it would be too difficult for the bands to say "hey people, pack your tents and take them back".
I'm afraid however that it's not very much in the interest of the organisers who very likely follow a "people come here to relax" logic.
@kravietz @guenther here in Germany you played a deposit and got a big trashbag and when you returned it filled up after the festival you got back 5-10€. That worked really good. If you did not cause trash you collected the one from your neighbors.
But indeed it will not work if it is too cheap and increasing the price punishes the poor...
I used to live almost on the doorstep of Reading Festival (it takes place in the smaller suburb of Caversham) for about 30 years of my life. The whole thing has been an ecological and safeguarding disaster for decades, it already costs nearly 300€ for a full ticket, so the poor are already priced out. also many positive LFT Covid tests were thrown in the gutters outside the venue, as people who have spent so much won't turn back..
TBH the official statement being given about the 20 year olds death was she already had a pre-existing serious (and likely life limiting) medical condition (so attending the festival could literally have been a "bucket list" item), but I am concerned about Covid 19 being spread through the 6th forms and colleges of many different areas (as the kids who do get it aren't likely to keel over but it can have really unpleasant medium/long term effects)
we can't pretent that these people are not overlapping and sharing behavior and environmental attitudes with the average Westerner (at least). The sample is, alas, too large for any selection bias to provide comfort.
you can draw your conclusions as to where we are heading collectively...
@kravietz Got a friend that always stays to the very very end of festivals so they can go round scavenging things left behind by others. They usually bring back as many tents as they can carry and then give them away on freecycle etc so at least they're used.
Pre-Covid, when gigging, we used to go over the festival site afterwards, and collect all the usable tent components, so we could put them into full festival-kit's for later use.
Some we used, some we gave away, and, some were sold to finance the band. :)
I wouldn't recommend doing that right now though, hence the mess you see. :(
None of the usual suspects will feel safe doing that. :(
@diritschka Not in the COVID-19 era, as @BillySmith explained earlier in this thread 😔
@kravietz Disappointed but not surprised.
also numerous reports of violence, theft and vandalism amongst the festival audience, whilst not quite enough to get TVP involved it scared some young people to the point they called their liberal Gen X parents to rescue them and take them home...
this isn't new either nor confined to Reading, the peace festival in Colchester, Essex which had been held since 1980s had to be stopped in about 2009 due to youths forming gangs and fighting amongst themselves!
https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/i-travel-reading-festival-middle-21495202
@kravietz I wonder how many of them died by covid.