Pikeys are thieving scum and shouldnt be allowed into the Glastonbury site.

The glastonbury festival owes it's existance to travellers and people who sought alternative lifestyles. If you want glastobury to be like the pheonix festival etc then things are certainly going your way. Without the travellers and the rest of us blaggers who would never dream of buying a ticket, the festival will be just a bunch of punters and people selling pointless shit.

'The glastonbury festival owes it's existance to travellers and people who sought alternative lifestyles' yes it does, but now thats its become a commercial enterprise it's clearly no longer going to want certain elements from the travelling community attending.

Whilst a large percentage of seasonal travellers who made such events as 'the big green gathering' (at warminster in 1998) a good experience for those attending, and other such smaller festivels aren't a nuisance, there are fringe elements associated with glastonbury that are a major pain for organisers, police, and festivel goers alike.

Whereever you have large festivels they seem to attract pikeys and other assorted nomadic criminals who have no respect for the environment, road safety or the possessions of other festivel goers. Elements notorious for burning farmers fences as fuel, leaving litter, human and animal waste, stealing everything that isn't bolted down and a lot that is, breaking into parked vehicles and tents, driving vehicles unfit for the roads and generally created a nasty atmosphere. Essentially this fringe element within the travelling community are rural terrorists and need to be prevented from their negative influence on gatherings.

Events like glastonbury should be about the music and the atmosphere, not about worrying some dirty pikeys going to rob you or steal the wheels from your vehicle. They are parasites to whichever local authority they descend upon.

Furthermore, there has been a massive rise in the number of incidents where a petrol station or garage will be frequented by these sorts, who fill their often large vehicles with fuel, then make off without paying a bloody dime for it.

I am sure if the actual travelling community itself was to have a zero tolerance approach to persons like that sheltering under the umbrella of the 'travelling' community, and make it quite clear they will not associate with such types, that the festivel at glastonbury would be more inviting to the travelling community as a whole.

As for not paying for such events... it was never an issue when the events were small, lo key events for like minded people, but when you have 100 000 people decending on a few acres of fields for several days you have to think of the logistics of waste removal, providing adequate sanitation, health and safety, fire and medical support, policing to deal with any incidents of public disorder and theft, provision of water and foods, meeting points where lost children can be dealt with etc etc etc... + the post fesitival cleanup, the fact the fields take time to recover before they can be used for other activities... all this costs money, as unfortunately does the hiring of bands. Its only reasonable to expect to pay for such an event. Clearly if you dont want to pay money for such an event then take advantage of one of the smaller low key festivels