My daughter has been relating stories about last weekend's Reading festival which are making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Being a daft teenager, she is not at all H&S aware like her dad (and most of us here) and found most of the risks amusing and 'a laugh'. Unsurprisingly, I have to disagree...........' Overcrowding and lack of crowd control seem to be the biggest issue. Whilst a head count is made onto site, once in there are no restrictions re what stage individuals attend or head counts. As a result, several stages apparently became very crowded. My daughter arrived early (3 x bands early) to one stage - which was inside a marquee - in order to secure a good position by the stage. However, just prior to the band coming on, a huge crush made it impossible for her to stand facing the front stage barrier, as the steel barrier pressing on her stomach & caused her to experience difficulties breathing. She tried to turn side on to the barrier to assist her breathing at which point the small 'gap' she had created was taken up by another punter and she was unable then to face the stage.Finally she (and a mate) decided this was a bit iffy and asked to be lifted out by security men positioned in the safety gap between the stage and crowd and watched the gig from way back. On other occasions she said that when she put her hands in the air, she was unable to place them by her side, such was the level of crowding. Instead, you had to lean on the person in front, thereby creating more pressure on those against the front barrier. Travelling from the front to the back of the crowd is impossible (no gaps) so crowd surfing is the only method! She has bruises where a performer dived onto the crowd and kicked her in the head and arm. She also relates stories of band members encouraging crowd surfing in already overcrowded spaces. Another feature is where band members ask the audience to make 'circle spaces' (or similar name). These are when the crowd push back to form a hollow in which individual members of the crowd throw themselves into the gap and crash up against others (no I don't get it either). The formation of these spaces caused massive pressure on fans. Her friend fell and passed out and couldn't be reached for a while, whilst on another occasion, someone fell causing a domino effect trapped two girls at the end of the stack for some minutes. She eventually left 12 hours early, as when trying to avoid a 'riot', she arrived at her tent to find a neighbour's had burnt down. This was one of many tent fires, some perhaps caused by the widespread use of nightlight candles to warm canned food owing to the banning of LPG following a serious injury last year after a LPG cylinder exploded. Has anyone ever been to Reading or Leeds or had any dealings (professionally or otherwise) with Festivals?? Is this usual??? . The H&S controls (or lack of them) seem out of kilter with the strict licensing measures in place in clubs, bars and other permanent places of entertainment. After the recent German festival tragedy where 19 died in a crowd crush, it makes me wonder whether it will happen a UK festival next

Your daughter's experience of crowd control (or lack thereof) brings a chilling reminder of the Hillsborough Disaster. I thought we had experts in crowd dynamics at these sorts of events.

Hi I was at reading and on friday I went in to the said smallish tent to watch Mumford and sons and the organisers has seriously under estimated the bands popularity as I too experienced the crush that ensued when it seemed the whole festival all 60,000 people tried to fit in that small tent i was eventally got out of the crush with assistance from a couple of massive chaps who i could not thank enough only to see many people comming out looking as though they were going to pass out, but as soon as some one made it out more people would start pushing trying to get in saying that there must be space now! which there clearly was not!!! and i did not see one steward doing any form of crowd control. surely they should have had stewarsds there to ensure that due to the free flow of the festival, marques with a limited capacity did not exceed its capacity by such a massive amount as it clearly did !! And as for the tent area i took one look in there and thanked god i had booked a hotel as that was an accident just waiting to happen. All that said though It was fantastic fun I will be going back next year!!!!! but i'll be booking that hotel again.....

Arh now the people "Moshing" had quite a bit of space as they were to dame dangerous to get close to !!! they should come with some sort of safety data sheet pinned on them !!! and they must be black and blue now!

I have experience of being involved in certain events surrounding funfairs, carnivals and recently a festival that also involved live music with some locals bands playing and some other bands that have sold a few million records here and there. The planning from our side in relation to crowd management, evacuation procedures and plans, fire, general risk management, stewarding arrangements, alcohol arrangements, police presence and other services took a long time to put together and many restless nights. The industry with destivals is very largely made up of self employed contractors however I found these people to be very professional and competent in their jobs. They will be I am sure a Safety Advisory Group for this event and an Event Safety Coorindator (possibly several, each specific to a set area). I think these concerns should be brought to the attention of these parties if at all possible. These type of events need a very dynamic approach to safety and someone empowered to make quick accurate decisions.

It was mentioned earlier but the local council should be informed if safety concerns are as bad as discibed. Many councils now days have Safety advisory groups prior to such events I would suggest you ask if this was the case here and if not why not.

I attended Leeds Festival on Saturday - admittedly I should know better than attend such events at my age but as a rock music fan with an 11-year-old son of similar tastes, I was fortunate enough to secure a day ticket. I have to say that I was surprised at the high level of organisation and suggest that my experience was close to that of Gilliatt39621 . We spent much of the day in the Main Stage area and although it became a little busy when the headline act came on, things went pretty well. I witnessed very little obvious drunkenness and although spontaneous outbreaks of 'circle pits' meant the 'mosh pit' came a little close, there was a good deal of awareness among other spectators looking out for the 'vulnerable' - my son included - and they steered the moshers in a suitable direction. the audience was high-spirited but good humoured, and it wouldn't be a rock gig without moshing and crowd surfing. There were anouncements by the compere to calm pressure at the front of the stage and this seemed to have the desired effect - although I understand there may have been some minor injuries and a little overheating. During trips through the campsite areas, there appeared to be a good level of stewarding, extensive fire watching from towers, significant visible presence by various officers (env health, security, etc). I suppose there will always be the possibility that an act may be more popular than anticipated and lead to a venue becoming overcrowded - maybe the organisers can learn from this type of incident and plan contingency for similar. I'm sure they would be receptive to any comments and observations of experiences of concern. Keep on rockin'!

...having read all the above.. at the 2009 Glastonbury festival there was 16million hours on site including a workforce of 25,000 and 175,000 attendees (from erection and dismantling) there were four reportable injuries one of which a was reportable 3day injury, surely its all about choice if you want to go or not or are we (some) just been a little over protective after all accidents can happen any where and we cant control the idiots

...no further reading required thank you...the type of venue used would not be granted a licence in this country......the organisers of the Love parade were more interested in the £££ that would be earnt and ingnored warnings, and advise was not acted on ... unlike the organisers in this country following legislation and rules that govern the festivals in the UK ..

From experience, as outside contractors, the supporting infrastructure at Reading pop festival such as temporary office accommodation, car parking etc has been dire too; with not even the most basic H&S measures being put in place. Trouble is if H&S was put high on the agenda at a music festival and enforced resulting in it being cancelled then the public and media backlash against ‘elf & safety’ would be immense! Sadly it may take a disaster to see a change but then the public would no doubt be asking why H&S wasn’t instigated in the first place. Dammed if you do dammed if you don’t?

Having recently attended my first ever festival (aimed at those of us with our roots in the 80s), and having a teen who has just attended Reading for the second time this thread has made interesting reading. My teen's description of the last evening at Reading was that , and I roughly quote "imagine the apocalypse with everyone fighting for survival, with fires and rioting - it was frightening this year and I wont be going back....." She reports that there was an increased police presence this year. It is my opinion that the trend for setting fire to tents at the end of the festival will no doubt result in serious injury or even death at some point.

Castle Donnington, late 1988 there were 2 fatalities due to crowd surge / crushing while one of the bands were on. This isn't a new phenomena, surprised there wasn't some intervention at the front of the stage by security etc. Wonder what the Risk Assessment made of it all?

http://www.safeconcerts.com/ there is a very good discussion forum on this site that relates to all aspects of safety at gigs

The throwing of half full plastic bottles (drink and urine) is more of a risk IMO. Having been a regular visitor to the Monsters of Rock during late 80's and 90's, we always had a look out for overhead bottles. I've been smacked on the head a few times by them and it hurts! Saw plenty of head wounds there too. Nothing wrong with Mosh pits, used to love them when I was young but as others have said, you need to go with knowing what to expect and stay towards the back if it looks like it's going to get rough.