Safety & Security

A strong sense of community is one of the most important things at Boomtown. We want everyone to feel safe, to be themselves and lose all inhibitions.

Protect Yourself From Crime

Although we don’t  seen many theft or violent crimes at the festival, please still take these provisions to keep yourself safe from opportunists and tent thieves:

• Lock and empty your car
• If you have valuables at the festival - use the lockers for storing cash, keys and phones
• Don’t carry large volumes of cash
• Keep any valuables out of sight and in a secure place.
• Get to know your neighbours and create a community spirit to look out for each other.

Reporting a crime:

• If you see anyone acting suspiciously, report it immediately to the nearest security or steward, or let us know your location via the onsite text number - details coming soon. Please report anything suspicious.
• If you need to report a theft in progress find your nearest security or steward or report it straight into Campsite Hubs who will inform security and provide assistance
• If you have had items stolen from your tent or person, let us know at the Campsite Hubs or the Information Points, so we can support you and help you with contacting the police.

Security

There are a lot of measures in place to help keep everyone safe, including our security teams who assist in ensuring things run smoothly for all of us. They are all Security Industry Authority (SIA) trained and are here to help, listen, advise, take reports and deal appropriately with difficult situations. You can find them easily in their hi-vis tabards throughout the city, in all campsites and campsite hubs, stages and venues, where their primary objective is to keep us all safe and secure.

Below is an overview of what they do to look after us all, some tips on how we can help them do their challenging job and some advice on how to keep yourself and your stuff safe;

Getting Around 

So you can make your way around our site quickly and see as many artists and shows as possible, security keeps their beady eye on traffic flow! Sometimes they might:

• Stop people entering an area or stage if it has reached capacity, or you don’t have the right wristband for a specific area
• Shut down venues
• Implement one-way systems
• Cordon off areas
• Remove tents if they are blocking fire lanes
• Ask anyone underage in an age-restricted area to move on to a suitable location

Campsites

To keep an eye on everyone’s safety and wellbeing as well as ensure everyone gets the chance to rest up, refuel and have some much-needed sleep, security are on hand to:

• Provide support to anyone who may feel they have been put in an uncomfortable position by any anti-social behaviour
• Provide a presence across campsites to check for suspicious behaviour and protect against opportunist tent theft
• Ask the more boisterous amongst us to move if they are in a designated quiet area or if it’s the early hours
• Switch off rogue and prohibited sound systems

They can also...

• Stop people from putting themselves and others in danger by climbing on sets or equipment
• Stop tagging and vandalism of sets
• Confiscate any item that is on the prohibited items list
• Confiscate any alcohol brought into the festival that is over the official limit
• Implement no smoking regulations
• Confiscate drugs taken overtly in public
• Restrain anyone who is a danger to themselves or others
• Carry out searches in cars, campervans and bag and person searches

Evictions:

If you find yourself in the unlikely position of being taken to evictions… don’t expect the worst. This is a review, not an automatic judgement!

ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR FROM SECURITY

Security must follow the rules and respect everyone on site. Boomtown is a community which celebrates diversity and does not tolerate any form of intimidation, violent or threatening behaviour or prejudice or anti social behaviour.

If at any point you feel that Security staff are not behaving in an appropriate way please DO report it whilst you are on site, so we can ensure it is followed up and we can take affirmative action immediately. You can do this by reporting it to any Info Point at the campsites or via campsite manager at your campsite hub, or via the incoming text message service. You can also request that a different security staff member requests assistance from a manager to deal with the situation. To help us investigate this fully, if possible please make a note of the following details:

• SIA / ID number (this is found on security’s hi vis jacket)
• Tabard number
• Location
• Date / time
• Physical description

Post show Complaints

If you do not feel able to report a situation you were faced with onsite, we will absolutely investigate your feedback after the show. However, please note that it is much harder for us to investigate and take action to deal with retrospective complaints or issues, except where a matter can be raised as a criminal offence with the police or is subject to civil legal action. It is almost impossible to follow up individual incidents when we are no longer on the ground and they can take months to resolve and may result in an unsatisfactory conclusion. 

SECURITY CANNOT:

• Confiscate drugs without issuing an official drugs warning notice and recording the proces
• Under no circumstances can they carry out any form of intimate search of an individual.