17 dd going to Leeds festival

[Whoops1]

Hi she’s sensible, I think, but naive we live in a village, and of course thinks she knows it all. Her and her chum have booked an Airbnb which impressed me! But how do I warn her without sounding mad to be super careful - I got done in with some sort of Micky Finn when I was 30 ffs. So even though she says, ‘I’m nearly an adult’ I say even adults can get fooled. What should she be taking? What precautions should I be taking? I have her and mates phone numbers and address of Airbnb.
think mad phone all to Dh from mad mil has got my anxiety Sky high, of course she will be fine.and needs to learn.but..thanks mil! For context we can do no right, sil is perfect. Sigh!

I went just before covid.

Honestly I was horrified. Teens wearing hardly any clothes and clearly off their faces by mid afternoon. I'm hoping mine never want to go.

Just tell her the normal things, watch your drink and ask security or the first aid tents if she needs help.

And take hand gel, the toilets were disgusting.

And possibly take a range of bottle lids as they remove them from everything, even water so it makes it hard to keep things safe. Or take empty bottles to decant into.

I managed to tip a full bottle of water into my pants while using a portapotty so ended up buying some striped hippy trousers to wear for the rest of the day.

The problem is that they are not spiking their drinks, they are sticking needles into them. The security man who helped is also said that there had been reports of patches - a bit like nicotine patches- being stuck onto girls. I've no idea if this is true.

@Whoops1 sorry I realised I'm late to this thread. Glad your daughter had a good time.

Leeds in the last year there has been a big rise in rapes and knifings. Things have deteriorated since covid lockdowns so I'm not surprised at the events this weekend

Tent fires have been the norm at Leeds and resting since the 90s, happens every year, just this year TikTok is huge so it's more visible

I was at Leeds yesterday, while watching arctic monkeys I saw three lots of people getting medical attention, hard to say if drugs or booze related

Tent fires maybe. But girls getting spiked with injections and then getting told to "sleep it off"? Nobody there took the fact that she had been spiked seriously. Nobody there made an official report. How many other girls did this happen to? They are minimising and trying to sweep what is going on under the carpet. They are failing in their duty to protect teenage girls.

idiots were setting tents and toilets on fire the last night when I went in the very early 2000s. We never stayed the last night. But the festival itself always felt safe.
From what I’ve watched this weekend online it seems worse than ever and behaviour not just limited to campsites.

Such a shame as festivals are great fun. seems like too many very young teens go and go feral. The organisers need to get a grip.

How is this even legal? I can not get over the fact that ALL of the authorities look the other way when it comes to festivals, and under age drinking and drugs, arson, rape and assaults are entirely ignored - in what world would any of this be acceptable outside a festival setting?

DD17 went to Reading for the first time, and came home (very) early, she said it was too dangerous to stay. There were grown men fighting outside her tent. Unconscious children lying unchecked on the ground for hours. The safe hubs were overwhelmed with kids overdosing on ket and dangerously drunk/panic attacks and in MH crisis. Theft on a mass scale. Missiles being thrown around, huge bonfires everywhere (the average age is 16 so how is it that bonfires are even allowed)

It was utterly chaotic from the minute they arrived into the campsites. Although well organised some of security team were very clearly high on drugs - some were really nice and the stewards as well, but many were just kids themselves on temporary contracts.

DD described it as a dystopian hellscape, she will never go back.

When I went to collect her I looked at the young kids there, barely even teenagers and they looked so damn vulnerable. There is no way on earth my dc will ever be allowed to return. It has put them off festivals for life.

I think all these girls need to report this. It's shocking!
My dd' friend was spiked at a nightclub. My dd found her on the stairs unconscious, called us and dh came and took her to hospital. Carried her out of the club. Nobody asked him why he was carrying an unconscious teenager.

At the hospital she was just a number, another girl who is spiked, they don't even know if she drank it or was injected she doesn't know what happened to her when she was unconscious.

The police didn't talk to her as she didn't know what happened and the whole thing was just another statistic.

Oh my gosh.

Fucking terrifying!!!!! What a time to be alive.

Its pretty usual for Leeds and Reading I remember the riots and fires in the 90s. The only reason they still allowed to happen is because its been going for so long (since the 50s) and its funded by Festival Republic previously Mean Fiddler. The local authorities receive so much funding from them to 'police' the events that they need to keep permitting the license.

The organisers pretty much encourage the lawless behaviour in the campsites by not letting anyone in the main arena with their own alcohol to protect their income at the bars so everyone gets tanked up at the campsites before going in. There is much fewer security staff in the campsites compared to the arena because that is where the money is - they want the vendors, bars, bands, and stages to be protected at all costs but not the punters.

I feel so sorry for the parents of the 17 year old who died at Leeds. There's no way I would let my teens go with the number of sexual assaults let alone the stabbings and fires. Have you followed the police Twitter feed from Sunday night? So many desperate parents asking for help and concerned about their teens at Reading and Leeds. Reports of young people coming home early feeling unsafe.

The only think I remember about Reading in the 90s were people pushing over portaloos with people inside, which was frankly terrifying enough.

I went to Leeds festival this year-my DD16 wanted to go with her boyfriend and I really didn't feel happy with letting them go on their own so we all went together with my younger teenager in tow! (I also really wanted to see RAtM and Arctic Monkeys-gutted RAtM cancelled!)

I booked secure camping with pink moon and it felt absolutely fine-there we're big groups of teenagers in there who had obviously opted to avoid the chaos of the other campsites. They were definitely partying hard but behaved fine. The showers and toilets were cleaned regularly, security checked everyone's bands as they entered the camp and there were regular security guards patrols.

The older teenagers went off to friends who were camping in purple site -were offered drugs many times and apparently saw "hundreds of dicks" because "everyone is just pissing everywhere!" ...after Thursday night they came back to camp after the headliners finished-they said they were tired but I'm not too sure about that!

It certainly opened the teenagers eyes-a group of teenage boys (maybe 18/19) were snorting coke in the queue into the arena. The searches aren't thorough and would be easy to get round but the sheer number of people there would make it impossible to do properly without thousands of staff. Lots of weed being smoked and generally a lot of teenagers either pissed, high or both.

I didn't see any fights, anyone passed out or particularly rowdy behaviour -but we weren't on the coloured campsites-I would stepped in if I'd seen anyone in distress or hurt.

My thoughts are that under 18s (at least) should be accompanied by an adult and they should cut the weekend tickets by half to make the security more manageable. It was a fantastic weekend but we only saw a snapshot-if anyone is thinking of letting their teenagers go next year then I'd suggest secure camping.

How I wish I'd paid extra for secure camping. But the point is, if they can do that for a small section, they can do it for all thr camp areas. They shouldn't be allowed to continue if they can't provide the staff to make it safe for everyone - not just those who pay for a safe area.

I agree...it would put the price per ticket up by a considerable amount though. Maybe that's what's needed to raise the average age. I paid the cheapest option, took our own beds etc and it was still £125 each on top of the ticket price which was £260ish.

I don’t think there is the will to change it - the very reason teens like it is because it’s edgy and abit dangerous. That is an appealing factor to adolescents. If it was perfectly safe and secure they wouldn’t want to go!

I suppose so. I'm just old now and sensible and worry about the children there. But you're right.

DD was a volunteer at Leeds festival 3 years ago. They were told not to patrol the red campsite because it was too dangerous.

I went on a day ticket this year, to chaperone mid-teen dcs and friends. It felt safe enough in the day, and there were quite a few other parents there too, but people were obviously under the influence of drugs. But looking at the campsite we went past I wouldn’t want to stay beyond midnight. DCs also agreed!