Our corporate world of events tends to flip to some festivals and music events in the summer, with 2023 seeing us travel to the infamous Glastonbury and Secret Garden Party festivals. NR Events play a key role in event control of both festivals, running the Evictions team.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term ‘evictions’ in events, it deals with individuals or groups who are found to be breaching the policy and ticket guidelines of the festival, and therefore must be removed from the site. This is to ensure the safety of all attendees and staff at the event and comply with the licences that the festival has been granted. There are a variety of reasons that individuals may be brought to us by security staff, including:
- Being on-site without a valid ticket or wristband
- Anti-social behaviour
- In the possession of unlawful substances
- Selling goods/items without the festival’s permission
- Committing a criminal offence
What we do
As the Evictions team, we are there as an unbiased third party to make the decision as to whether the person’s situation warrants an eviction or if they will be able to enter the festival. We aim to make the process as comfortable and simple as possible as we understand that it can be a distressing situation for anyone to be in.
It is important that every person that enters the compound is greeted in a friendly and approachable way and offered any welfare assistance that they may require. Especially at Secret Garden Party, having the Welfare team within the Evictions compound helps to ease any stresses and allows us to continue with the decision-making and administrative parts of our roles.
Alcohol and drugs at these types of events are inevitable and so our management staff our experienced in being able to deal with the potential erratic and unpredictable behaviours of intoxicated festival-goers. Maintaining a calm presence usually helps to de-escalate most situations and we pride ourselves in being able to build good rapports and a sense of trust with the individuals that we deal with. We ultimately want the best outcome for everybody, whether that is returning to partying in the festival or getting home safely.
Mental Health First Aid
Our core team at NR Events are trained in Mental Health First Aid which we believe to be an incredibly valuable certificate in many working environments and means our staff have great skills to deal with otherwise difficult scenarios.
We are able to spot the signs of someone who may be struggling with their mental health when they come into Evictions and ensure that they are provided with a high standard of welfare or medical attention from trained professionals. Festivals can be overwhelming places and potentially trigger underlying issues, so if we can spot these signs early, then the people under our supervision have the best chances of returning home safely and recovering to an improved state of mental well-being.
Evictions is important!
Without Evictions at a major festival, there would be no controlled process of escorting individuals from the site as well as security staff not always having the knowledge about ticketing and processes to make a fully-informed decision. As much as Evictions can seem like such a small portion of the overall festival organising staff, it is a key part of the smooth-running of a large-scale event.
Year on year, we are working on improving the Evictions process and experience so that our teams’ job can be simplified to be able to carry out an eviction as efficiently as possible. Ensuring that individuals aren’t waiting in the Evictions compound for an extended period of time is one of our top priorities.
We look forward to hopefully returning to Glastonbury and Secret Garden Party next year for more smooth-running events.
