Glastonbury: 100,000 unticketed entrants

According to a report at NME.com, local councillors believe that at this years festival around 100,000 people gained unofficial entry, putting the safety of all at risk. It refers to the Roskilde tragedy, and implies that if nothing is done to stop non-paying entrants at future festivals, a similar incident could happen at Glastonbury. We had previously heard of figures - circulating within the offices of Mendip District Council, the licensing authority - of 80,000.

The councillors view is contradicted by the police, who told Michael Eavis - the farmer who organises the event - that they believed that the amount of unticketed entrants was around 15,000.

The reality is that no figure is any more than a guesstimate, and what really matters is how safe people felt they were within the crowds. We have had a few reports from attendees of "scary amounts of people" during Moby's performance, but in the main people report that they felt perfectly safe with the number of people there. What seems to have worried some tickets holders was the amount of theft, sometimes violent, which they blame on people who hadn't paid for entrance.

Michael Eavis has already stated that future festivals will have a higher fence - 17 feet - which he claims will make it "impossible to get though". However, a further method that is used by people to gain entry without a ticket is paying gate staff. Many people have reported to us how some gate staff were willing to let people in on receiving payment anywhere from £5 to £50. This causes the same problems as fence jumping - and the festival causes see none of the benefit - while those unscrupulous gate staff involved do very well indeed.

We also wonder how the sale of Sunday tickets (the existence of such was officially denied but they were officially sold - we saw with our own eyes festival office staff dealing with applications) may have effected the numbers of people on site.

Our latest information from official sources - checked today - is that, as yet, no decision has been taken on whether there will be a festival in 2001. A decision about whether to run a festival next year will be taken in October.

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