Download festival gets heavy with its punters

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/12/download-festival-heavy-punters-the-man-police

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Three days in a Less Than Jake tour T-shirt that gradually begins to smell like bottled fundament. Of not caring if your hair looks like someone’s poured an entire bottle of Crisp 'n Dry over a golden retriever’s back. Good company. Bad food. Music so loud it can make fairly important bones fall out of you. Away from work, from family, from life, from responsibility, from the probing finger of The Man. You’ve waited for this all year. You’ve earned it. It’s finally here.

This temporary respite is what festivals were invented to provide. Particularly this weekend’s Download, historically known for a convivial atmosphere, little in the way of drugs or violence and an abundance of friendly people-of-a-certain-age in wraparound shades called Lizzie and Gaz. But no. Not this year. In 2015, The Man has chosen to pitch his tent firmly at Download, and he’s brought a couple of fairly alarming security measures with him.

“Strategically placed cameras will scan faces at the Download festival site in Donington before comparing [them] with a database of custody images from across Europe,” the Police Oracle reported, perturbingly, on Monday. Seeking clarification, the Register filed a freedom of information request with Leicestersh ire police, who explained the database is “a stand-alone database of legally held custody photographs drawn together with partners in Europol”.

So, you’ll be papped. Your sweaty mug is then compared to other mugs in a mainframe. And if it pings, meaning you’re a wanted person of some dastardly kind, you’re finished. If you’re not a criminal then be on your best behaviour anyway – they are always watching.

Well that’s fine, you might be thinking. At least the pay-off for this bizarre impingement of liberty is that we might finally nab an errant axe murderer or something, right? An axe murderer who deeply loves Andrew WK.

But the system is solely local. So, if you’re wanted by, say, South Yorkshire police, the Old Bill are unlikely to swoop down and Taser you in the face as you’re moshing to Muse, skanking to Slipknot or, for purely alliterative purposes, krumping to Kiss. Whereas if you happen to be the elusive garden ornament thief of Market Harborough, you’re gnome-nabbing days are numbered.

The whole thing is bizarre. But, in-keeping with the spirit of 2015, it gets worse. This year’s Download is also using RFID dogtags, an electronic and compulsory ID and payment system which will be used to gain access to stage areas and to purchase all food, drink and goods. The festival’s privacy policy suggests that data may be passed on to targeted marketing companies. The wristbands also presumably mean it will be possible to track your movements across the festival by checking your purchase history. In conjunction with the cameras, the only time you’ll actually be off the grid is during that spiritually devastating loo trip on Sunday morning. This is your brief moment of solitude. And it’s definitely no way to enjoy a festival.

It’s difficult to fathom what Download is hoping to achieve with these measures, beyond subtly telling its punters it thinks they are all potential criminals.

Perhaps it’s ushering in a new era of festival policing for the safety and benefit of everyone. Moshpits are dangerous and will therefore be eliminated; anyone engaging in one will be chased from the site by hounds bred with an intensely conditioned hatred of flesh-tunnels. If you smoke anything – anything at all – the endorphins released will be detected by an array of sensors and spies, and the full force of the Leicestershire constabulary will crash down upon you like a collapsing stack of righteous hay bails, halfway through Lamb of God. A crack team of phrenologists will man the entrances and fondle all bonces for the telltale bumps of hereditary criminality. If in doubt, guilt is assumed.

None of these are much more stupid than the reality: that cameras will record you and constantly check you’re not a criminal while a tag monitors your movements. At a festival. Somewhere you’ve paid a lot of money to go and let your hair down.

Most festivals treat visitors like imbeciles and cash cows as it is, with searches upon entering stage areas so you have to buy extortionate booze, and bans on fires, noise and laughter after 11pm. Add Download’s invasive snoopery into the mix, and the modern festival now makes Pyongyang look like one of those leafy hippie communes where no one elects to wear pants and the lingua franca is the bongo.

Worst of all, according to the Register, Leicestershire police are annoyed this has come to light now as they didn’t want the public to be aware of the surveillance measures until the festival was over.

Who are these cameras and wristbands there to serve? The customer? If they wanted to do that they’d have ploughed the same resources into a tout-proof ticketing system. No, it’s The Man. That’s who. He’s just ruined Download. And, if you’re unlucky enough to be there, he’s coming for you.