Talk:Latitude Festival

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Have added a section on the thefts at Latitude 2007. Will update sources as these become available. Snowbunni 20:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved the full statement from Mean Fiddler here, as it seems a more appropriate place for it.Snowbunni 12:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Latitude Festival 2007 was a wonderful festival which was marred by a small number of tent thefts, in particular overnight on Thursday 12th July. Suffolk Constabulary has, as of today, not confirmed final figures of tent thefts but the figure of 40 quoted above is probably a realistic figure. Suffolk Constabulary will not confirm the final figures of tent thefts until another couple of weeks have passed as they need to allow enough time for any more reporting of crime to come in to them. If this figure is confirmed by Suffolk Constabulary to be correct, then this represents a pro rata reduction in crime compared to Latitude Festival 2006.

Unfortunately it is a fact of life that festival campsites offer easy pickings for thieves. In our experience, thieves often buy a festival ticket and enter the campsites just like any other festival goer and then target tents overnight while festival goers are often asleep inside and use the excuse "sorry wrong tent" if the occupant wakes up. They often slash tents and take money leaving other possessions behind. This is because if they are subsequently caught, they do not have anything on them that can link them to any crime.

A great deal of work went into planning the security in the campsites at Latitude Festival 2007. Improvements were made such as additional CCTV cameras, new Mean Fiddler managers in each zone supervising the security operation, a considerable increase in numbers of security on the ground patrolling, an additional fire tower, additional tent theft spotters on the fire towers and a comprehensive section on crime prevention advice published on the website in advance. We also used decoy tents in the campsites to act as a deterrant and a text messaging system to send out live instantaneous messages to all security staff onsite regarding intelligence and information. All of these plans were discussed and agreed with Suffolk Constabulary. Despite all of this, there were still tent thefts and we clearly need to look at it closely again in 2008 and do all we can to improve security further.

Suffolk Constabulary were onsite frequently throughout the weekend to investigate crime and liaise with security, held onsite police surgeries in the Left Luggage / Information Tent each day and were involved throughout the planning of the festival, the Multi Agency forum and will of course be included in the debriefing and the planning for 2008. A number of joint operations between Suffolk Constabulary and onsite security resulted in successful outcomes including arrests.

We will continue to work hard on reducing crime at all of our festivals. However it important that realistic targets are set. Even if we had ten times the security in the campsites, we do not feel that we could promise that all tent theft would be stamped out. It is also important that festival goers realise that keeping valuables inside their tent at any time is a risk as it would be anywhere in the country inside or outside a festival site. We would encourage all festival goers to instead consider alternatives. We did and will continue to encourage festivals goers to keep the valuables that they bring with them to a festival to an absolute minimum. We provide Left Luggage tents that are open 24 hours and cash machines to discourage people from having to carry large amounts of cash. We are also exploring using lockers.

For 2008, we will increase the number of security in the campsites and will look further at expanding the CCTV operation. We will also work with Suffolk Constabulary on a more wide reaching crime prevention campaign and will use decoy tents more widely.