EXCLUSIVE – ‘Today people, we’re breaking into Glastonbury’: TikTok gatecrashers try to illegally enter music festival by scaling 13ft perimeter wall using grappling hooks… before they’re caught by security
- Do YOU know these gatecrashers? Email eirian.prosser@mailonline.co.uk
Glastonbury gatecrashers documented their illegal break-in to the music festival by scaling a 13ft perimeter wall with grappling hooks ‘like batman’ before the brazen pair got caught by security guards.
The two young men documented their journey to the festival site, which included a long walk through fields, muddy ditches and woodland before arriving at the massive perimeter fence hiding the 900-acre site at Worthy Farm in Somerset.
In the video on TikTok the pair announced ‘today people we are breaking into Glastonbury’ and began their journey in West Pennard, around four miles from the festival each carrying camping rucksacks.
It comes as security staff in their watchtowers told of how festivalgoers were pitching their tents against the festival barriers to cover up tunnels to sneak in their friends.
Some, like those in the video, scaled the four-metre fence with ladders and ropes, while others were bolder and ran through the front gates with their backpacks in tow.
The Glastonbury gatecrashers, who shared their break-in on TikTok, used grappling hooks to try and get over the 13ft perimeter wall
In the video on TikTok the pair announced ‘today people we are breaking into Glastonbury’ and began their journey in West Pennard, around four miles from the festival
The unnamed youngsters in the video found their way to a clearing that looked directly down onto the sprawling music festival, with the famous Pyramid Stage in clear view
Glastonbury gatecrashers are digging deep Great Escape-style tunnels and scaling the festivals 13ft perimeter fence
Eventually the unnamed youngsters in the video found their way to a clearing that looked directly down onto the sprawling music festival, with the famous Pyramid Stage in clear view.
They then fumbled their way down through dense woodland before approaching the looming gates. At this point they took at our their grappling hooks, pulling themselves up the side.
While they did not manage to film themselves directly pulling themselves into the festival, the video later shows them in what appears to be a security tent, surrounded by guards protecting the festival from intruders.
One of the mischievous pair said while being detained, ‘It’s not good. Try again next year boys’ while a laughing security guard said ‘if you come back here again I’ll put you in a cell myself’.
It is not the first time that people have tried to trespass onto the festival site without tickets.
One security worker told The Times: They try to come in under the wall. It’s like The Great Escape but in reverse.’
Another said: ‘It’s wild. We’ve had to chase people down who bolted through the gates with their bags on, and some use grappling hooks to pull panels off the wall and climb over, like Batman.’
It is one of the largest music festivals in the world with the likes of Elton John, the Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses performing over the star-studded weekend.
Last year security staff had 127 incidents of gatecrashing over the five day festival
Glastonbury is one of the largest music festivals in the world with the likes of Elton John, the Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses performing over the star-studded weekend
Revellers listen performers in The Common on day two of the festival
Sunbelt Rentals, who designed and installed the huge 4.12m high and 7.8km long walls, said they are ‘virtually impenetrable’. Nevertheless, those without tickets have tried to take their chances.
Last year Kingfisher Security, who helps stop people entering the site, said that there were 127 incidents of gatecrashing.
One anonymous Londoner, speaking to the paper anonymously, said he and his friend are planning to scale the wall on Thursday night in a bid to see the first acts on the Pyramid Stage on Friday.
He said they had a ‘grappling hook on the go’ and will ‘wait until dark’. The music fan in his twenties said they were breaking in ‘out of pure desperation’.
The wall-scaler added that he was ‘willing to pay for the tickets but they’re impossible to get’ and he has ‘severe FOMO’ – fear of missing out.
Some have been more open about breaking into the festival. Rogue Somerset paraglider David Hoare, 67, has tried to paraglide into Glastonbury twice.
Back in 2015 he arrived extremely close to a shocked audience waiting to watch Kanye West on the Pyramid Stage – a stunt that ended up costing him £400 in fines.
Do YOU know these gatecrashers? Email eirian.prosser@mailonline.co.uk