EXCLUSIVE The dark side of Glastonbury: Drug dealers prowling village lanes, pub staff flogging tickets for sexual favours and drunk yobs trying to break in

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Fed up villagers living in the shadow of Glastonbury claim they are sick to death of ticketless fans arriving and trying to gatecrash the festival saying they bring drugs dealers in to town, commit lewd sexual acts and spoil the event
Locals in Shepton Mallet and Pilton in Somerset claim the huge demand for tickets encourages organised gangs to spring up to take advantage of the chaos, and even blame some of their neighbours for joining in the dodgy dealing.
The world-famous music event is currently taking place at Worthy Farm and every edition is attended by hundreds of thousands of people with hundreds more attempting to jump the fence.
In order to maintain order, Glastonbury employs an army of security guards who patrol its huge perimeter and turn away anyone trying to enter illegally.
But despite this obvious deterrent, ticketless ravers still arrive in their droves every year and haunt the giant fences for days, often sleeping rough wherever they can.
MailOnline spent a night outside the festival speaking to gate jumpers, security staff and local villagers.
We have chosen not to name any of the premises known to be used as bases by ticketless revelers or individuals spoken to in the article in order to deter imitators.
After arriving in Pilton, we attempt to navigate the endless collection of closed and boarded off roads in order to get a sense of how imposing the defences are.
Images taken by our drone show a staggering amount of infrastructure in place including 13ft fences and hedge barriers as well as hundreds of checkpoints.
Whilst idling close to the festival, we were approached by a clearly drunk man wearing multiple wristbands on his arm who asked if we had tickets.
After explaining we didn't, he offered to show us how to get inside, explaining that he was breaking in even though he had a ticket 'as it was more fun.'
The man, who was swigging from a glass of vodka, then escorted us to a secluded stretch of the fence on the outskirts of Pilton.
After downing his drink and throwing the glass into the woods, the man unsuccessfully attempted to scale the 15ft wall.
Conceding defeat, he then attempted to commandeer a temporary security fence to use as a ladder.
It was at this point, after we noticed he had drawn the attention of the security, we made a quick exit, leaving the man to his fate. It is unclear if he ever made it inside.
The fact the man was wearing multiple wristbands is perhaps the clearest indicator that he - like thousands of others there that day - didn't have a ticket, the accepted wisdom being that security will not have time to check everyone's wristband and will just scan the arms of revelers.
This is a tactic that has ostensibly also been used by notorious TikTok ukulele player Liam C, who went viral after sneaking into last year's festival and horrifying Dua Lipa with a private performance.
Posting a video from inside the festival this year, the musician bragged 'My wristbands are all nothing ones I've tied on, this is genuine, we've blagged it in.'
In the five hours MailOnline spent traipsing around the edges of Glastonbury, we saw multiple groups of mostly young men with small carry bags loitering around stretches of the fence. We didn't see a successful break in attempt in this time.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity a member of the security team told us he wasn't optimistic about their chances.
They said: 'Honestly it's mad they think we can't see them.
'Why would you be wandering around here if you didn't have a ticket? Some of them might get over the fence, but they never get far. There are over a thousand staff employed on the perimeter, you are always seen by one of us.'
And although it may seem like a piece of harmless fun, the consequences of gate crashing can have ugly consequences.
Last year's festival was thrown into chaos as hundreds of people snuck in with fake wristbands for just £50 by vaulting the fences - causing stages to be shut down from overcrowding and people to panic from the crush.
An exclusive video obtained by MailOnline shows people in the early hours of the morning jumping over the high walls and running into the festival which already hosts more than 200,000 ticket holders.
One successful infiltrator told MailOnline: 'It was ridiculously easy to get in. I joined a Reddit group chat of about 300 people and everyone was sharing tips and contact details of people who could break you in.'
Official tickets cost over £300 but hundreds joined forums on social media sites to find out how to be snuck in by seasoned pros.
While some people vaulted the festival's high walls, others pay for counterfeit wristbands to go through the main gates with.
They are met at the Castle Cary train station and given all the legitimate wristbands slipped off the hands of people already in the festival and taken back out by organisers.
One person told MailOnline: 'I just got the train down from London and met this girl at the station, paid her £50 in cash and she handed me the wristband.'
Given then, that the chances of getting in via the fence are slim to none, what happens when gate crashers need a place to unwind after a day out in fields?
Well according to locals, they descend on their neighbourhoods and village pubs - and that's where the trouble really starts.
All pubs in the bordering village of Pilton were closed when MailOnline visited on Wednesday this week, but just up the road in the small town of Shepton Mallet they are a hub of activity.
The landlord of one small local pub said that the problems in the tiny town, which has a population of just under 11,000 people, start well before the festival even begins as 'drug dealers are drawn here.'
'I'd say a few weeks before it starts you start to see them [drug dealers]', he explained, 'they pull up in their flash cars and just deal on the streets. Nobody else has cars like them.
'It's essentially free reign, the police are too busy with the festival - they're never caught.'
Things further deteriorate from Tuesday to Saturday of the festival week when break in attempts peak.
He continued: 'Oh it can be bedlam. There are young people off their heads on goes what everywhere you look, scrabbling for a ticket. Some of the locals play up to it which they really shouldn't.
'One year somebody accepted a sexual favour in one of the pubs for a day pass, it is pretty extreme.'
Due to the incredibly overbearing nature of the festival, which shuts down the majority of roads around it for weeks, many residents are given a set number of passes allowing them in for free.
The offer is so appealing it can even prove to be a major bonus for selling houses in the area.
At the time of publication, rightmove's property of the week is a £575,000 three bedroom cottage with the listing stressing that 'home owners have access to valued village tickets.'
However, some locals told MailOnline this scheme was open to manipulation by less scrupulous residents looking to make a quick buck.
One woman told us: 'You can sell these passes for hundreds and there are ways to get more than your allocated share.
'One person I know has managed to get over ten of them and he has been flogging them for loads everywhere you look.
'It's really not good, it ruins it for everyone else and it encourages these people to turn up emptyhanded and behave like louts for five days. We live here!'
In a neighbouring pub, the effects of this anti-social behaviour are plain to see.
Due to its carpark, the venue has become popular with ticket touts who infrequently arrive and promise to guarantee entry to the festival for a fee usually in the region of £500-£600.
The attempts are seized upon by desperate revelers willing to take a punt on local knowledge, however the attempts are rarely sophisticated or successful.
In the short time MailOnline was in the pub, we watched multiple small vehicles arrive and collect payment from groups in exchange for getting them through the checkpoints.
All but one of the trips was unsuccessful, and some were catastrophically so.
One punter showed us a video of an earlier attempt he had made to break into the festival which resulted in him being locked up in the festival jail.
In the clip, a group of people can be seen huddled in the back of the lorry as it moves through one of the many gated entry points to the sprawling Somerset festival.
Knowing the game is up, two gate crashers are seen frantically slashing at the blue tarpaulin cab in an effort to break out on foot.
The video then cuts to the revellers locked up in a secure facility with one proclaiming 'We're in Glastonbury jail!'
Revellers who try and outsmart the security - or misbehave inside - in the coming week could be taken to 'Glastonbury Jail', officially a holding space where people who break the rules are evicted from the site.
While detained, those who've fallen foul of Glastonbury's laws - including drug dealers or people displaying disorderly behaviour - are allowed to make a statement before they're frogmarched off site, occasionally into the hands of the police.
The new installation is the latest innovation the UK's biggest festival has implemented since security was seriously beefed up in 2000.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity to MailOnline, the man who filmed the video revealed he and others had paid £500 for the attempt after being picked up from a local pub and felt like 'illegal migrants'.
He said: 'I was desperate to try it. You know f*** the system. This random guy arrived in this huge blue lorry and said we're gonna get everyone in. We all paid him £500.
'We got driven to Glasto jail which is my favourite place. I've been to Glastonbury three times and been to the jail three times.
'I'm not giving up this year, I will get in.'
However there are many in Shepton Mallet who wish they all would and give them some peace.
The landlord of one pub told us that although business spikes during the festival, some of the behaviour on display as the drinks flow is appalling.
They said: 'The problem is that they turn up here with nothing. Sometimes they don't even have tents, they are just planning on sleeping rough.
'Of course whilst we're open it's mainly fine, bar the odd incident - we think one person has just defecated on the floor of the toilet for example, but when we shut at 11pm - where do they go?
'The answer is they have no choice but to sleep outside and all the noise and disruption that causes not just our business but others is incredibly damaging.'