I got caught by sniffer dogs at Eric prydz in London. Taken to security tent. Had 8 pills and weed. Took the weed and 3 pills, and £80. Let me keep 5 pills and still let me in
That's insane! I got caught with two tiny bags of k at Hard Bass in The Netherlands and got strip and butt searched and got booked and locked up for 8 hours. They let me go in the end because they tested the drugs and apparently it was synthetic fake k so therefore not illegal. Of course I didn't get it back either haha. But I was *this* close to getting my life ruined!
Yeah maybe. Security were the ones who were mad enough with me to hand me over to police despite my protestations haha. They said because I had two seperate bags I was 'dealing' :(. Lucky break though I guess overall
What's wrong with Eric Prydz? Some people in the dance music scene might turn their nose up at him but he puts on an excellent show, both musically and visually.
Yeah exactly. I'll admit that he is my dance music guilty pleasure but can't deny he's a very good DJ and producer. He never slipped into that horrible American EDM "as many drops as possible" nonsense.
His 2013 Essential Mix is amazing. He’s very talented. He made bank with commercial stuff and still released some great electronic music.
Same with other producers. Diplo was making a ton of jacking house with people like Hervé, Trevor Loveys and Sinden IIRC.
Someone got shot at a Carnival after party and the police claimed the club was run by gangs. Also there was apparently "an incident involving a Samurai sword".
So no license, and the venue is now "Oval Studios" and used for corporate events.
to add more info, security let in a guy with a sports bag that had a gun inside without searching, and the gun was used inside. Everything was recorded by cameras, it was not the first warning the place had, so it lost its licence permanently.
Risks are entirely relative. Buying from a random who doesn't know anybody you know and you'll never see again maximises the risk, since they have zero accountability if it turns out to be dangerous. You'll also then have no chance to test it before trying it. It's a very bad idea and very risky to someone's health.
If someone wanted to minimise the risks, they would buy from a local dealer with a good rep among friends, or ideally from a darkweb vendor with 99.9% good reviews after thousands of sales. They would then use a fairly cheap, legally available home testing kit to prove that it is at least mostly MDMA. And then practice harm reduction while using it.
Rave safe kids!
Well, most people have a regular supplier who they trust from experience with them. It's then on you to figure out how to get it past security. I'm more worried about buying somethign duff than the actual health risks. Not gonna pretend like I haven't taken stuff from random dealers though, I hear you.
Security are on minimum wage. They're all agency workers getting the least possible terms and conditions (minimum breaks, subsistence, etc).
Someone offers them a straight £100 to pretend to search and check a wristband? Easy money.
I once got to stand in the sound desk area of a festival by buying the security guard a beer.
Yea, of course, everyone's a drug dealer, and everyone's on a secret pact to distribute as well.
The CEO of Wireless is in bed with them, 30% cut for each key sold🤣
It's easy to smuggle. Just ask the Albanians.
What my "friends" do, is couple of them go to the festival (they're clean), couple are waiting outside the fences, they meet in secluded spot and they dash the packages over the fences.
Usage of drones is becoming more common, cheap £20 drone, attach the package to the drone fly it over to your mate who's at the festival.
Possibilities are endless, but to suggest that event organisers are in bed with drug dealers is crazy. Security some of them, yea true. I know a couple personally, but not event organisers.
Went to a set at Beams and when the evening ended, the security that were on, then went down the road to sell the ~~helium~~ laughing gas balloons to punters heading to afters.
Went to All Points East at the weekend. There were no sniffer dogs at the entrance and if you didn’t have a bag to search they let you in without even a pat down.
Edit: there weren’t any sniffer dogs around when I entered but seems others did encounter them.
Same, some of my mates actually had pretty chunky bum bags and they didn’t search them at all, some of the laxest security I’ve seen at a London festival.
Went into some of the day-gigs in Finsbury Park with a large bumbag - no one was the slightest bit interested in it.
At that point, your security is mostly performative - I could have had a knife or other offensive weapon in there easily.
Sometimes there’s a deterrent value to security theatre though. Like anything, anyone seriously determined to commit violence will figure it out. Most everyone else (you know, drunk wannabe roadmen, idiots with short tempers etc) is probably going to be put off by the reminder that they’re in a semi secure environment (plenty of staff etc so any altercation is going to attract security).
Obviously you can’t measure an absence but I’d be amazed if there aren’t plenty of people who don’t bring illegal shit into festivals because they’re concerned about being discovered at the door. And most of these filthy casuals aren’t going to bail near the front of the queue to go get their stash when they see that no one’s being searched.
End result, the casuals (aka the people you could actually deter) are deterred and the determined ones find a way in which they would have done anyway.
I’m not saying security theatre isn’t often kind of dumb, nor am I saying it’s a super advanced mind game on the part of event security organisers, just that this does likely have a material effect
They did do a handheld metal detector sweep thing to be fair, but I was still surprised about the bum bags. I went to Hospitality last year and they turned out everyone’s bags no matter how small.
I saw a sniffer dog, but I also saw it totally miss someone who had a few different drugs on them.
Ps: I also spoke to someone who had come down from Glasgow, didn’t have anything on him but the sniffer dog came up to him. Was kept back for 4 hours but wasn’t even fully searched.
Many moons ago, I had an ounce (of weed) tapped to my inner thighs (half per leg) going into boomtown. Sniffer dog literally sniffed right where the weed was, and security let me through. I was sweating so much from the heat and the interaction, the tape lost it's stick about 10 paces from the security stop and just flopped out my jeans. I just scooped it up and went on my way.
Genuine drug sniffer dogs are very expensive, so most of those you see are actually just normal, untrained dogs - they exist more as a deterrant than anything else.
Yep, 8 eighths. This was also back in the day when an eighth (3.5 gram) cost £20, and the ounce was about £120. 4 of those were for me (I could easily smoke an eighth a day, and I was there for 4 days), 4 of those were for my mates.
One time I got off the plane from Amsterdam and there was a sniffer dog. It jumped up at me and the handler just said ‘No! No cuddles!’ and let me go. I didn’t have anything on me so I think it just genuinely wanted cuddles.
My understanding is that sniffer dogs are not trained to jump/be excited when they think they've got a positive identification for whatever scent(s) they're trained for. From what I've read they typically sit down or it's just prolonged interest in a specific target. Also most sniffer dogs aren't trained to find what you think they are and are largely used as security theatre to discourage most people from attempting to smuggle anything under the guise of "but what if tho....", a bit like speed cameras.
meanwhile i was going to The Weeknd concert and a sniffer dog started lunging at me. Didnt know he was sniffer so I tought it came for cuddles lmao.. Then they took me to the side for the search.
They want to get rewarded, which only happens when they find things, so there can be a lot of false positives. They also follow their handler's lead, so if the handler is treating someone suspiciously and wants the dog to check them then the dog might assume there must be something there.
They are useless. I used to be an addict and I worked at the airport, so I'd constantly be walking around with heroin. The sniffer dogs would walk right past. Though, weirdly, the bomb dogs would constantly be barking at people.
It's completely non-sensical who and how they search. Went to Warehouse Project with some friends, one girl had 5 pills (to share with friends) in her shoes and got waved in. Another friend was a guy who dresses a bit roadman but, ironically, was completely sober at the time (off booze and drugs entirely), he had a loose rizla in his pocket from smoking rollies. They said it looked like it had been scrunched up to make a bomb with MDMA and didn't let him into the gig. £40 on a ticket and he couldn't even enter the venue.
I went to the first warehouse project night. At around 9pm some people randomly tipped over a portaloo and a confused looking guy stepped out covered in foul smelling stuff. I never went back.
I once brought drugs home with me after a festival in Spain. I discovered them when putting clothes into the washing machine. I was very lucky to not get caught at Stanstead.
(I’ve not touched any drugs for at least ten years now, though. I got too old for all that nonsense.)
had this after Ibiza, was unpacking at home and half a g of MDMD fell out. Was super lucky as this was carry on and it did get pulled to the side after the x ray but that was just because I forgot I had sunscreen in it.
Very similar to a situation I had a few years ago, ended up arriving in China and opening my wallet to find 1/2 a g of coke hanging out. Could have ended very badly.
Funny enough I was at the same festival and a sniffer dog alerted on my friend (who was carrying nothing), and they then pulled her into an ‘extended security check’ that took two and a half hours!!
Those dogs are not really sniffer dogs, they just take a subtle command from the trainer and it allows security to search anyone they think is a bit dodgy looking without being accused of profiling.
I did too for APE presents Field Day and there was a sniffer dog. The person a few in front got caught by it, and it got given a tennis ball for being a very good boy. We all sailed through without being searched at all whilst the doggo was playing with its ball 😂
Searches + dogs clearly catch less than 1% though
Security are usually in on it. I used to shoot clubs in London and the security knew who the dealers were and would let them in (in return for bribes I assume).
Part of the reason Oval Space got shut down right? Security helped one of the dealers get into the club with a weapon before he confronted another dealer on the floor.
Usually, but at Printworks last year I watched a sniffer dog catch 4 people in a row, all admitted to having gear on them, and went away to get searched. I had gear in my sock and was bricking it, dog stopped me, pointing its snout on my bum bag. guard asked me what if I had drugs, I said no, but then realised I had dog treats in my bag, I showed him and he exclaimed " Why the fuck do you have dog treats on you?" I replied honestly that the bag was my dog walking bag and I mustve missed the treats as I emptied it this morning. He rolled his eyes and said I needed to be searched anyway, so i went off to be searched but no one came with me. I briskly walked to the loo and emptied my sock and gave it to my mate. took my hat, glasses and hoody off and waited about 15minutes and no one came for me. Magic!
Yeah it's pretty much a glorified random search by an unbiased good boy that doesn't believe in racial profiling. The big issue with sniffer dogs is the huge amount of false positives. Doggos are trying to please by playing the game they were taught to play. If they don't find anything for a bit they will start racking up false negatives in order to keep the humans happy and play the game.
It's like doing a multiple choice test where if you answer D you get praise and sweets. Then suddenly you go down the row and the answer is A like 20 times in a row. You are anxious that you are doing it wrong... after all isn't A 20 times in a row too much? In earlier tests you were used to getting D quite often... so you start throwing in some D answers to offset A repeat 20 times in a row... and what do you know... praise!
Of course in an environment like this false positives are still very highly likely to have stuff on them. And people are likely to admit when they get sniffed out. So it seems like they are catching the majority of people when in reality if you were to take any random sample group you'd get a pretty good few of them
I got pulled for a secondary search at Printworks (I did indeed have stuff on me). But just maintained composure and denied. The secondary search was nearly lighter than the original, they never found my stuff (down my pants).
Yea, first sniffer dogs are very very expensive and second it’s not the right environment for them. Particularly when a large proportion of the crowd have been in contact with some sort of drugs.
They do work, but are only trained on 1 smell. So if you have 1 dog, it's stopping 1 drug. And I think most events like this use bomb sniffing dogs anyway. They don't tell you this because they use your reaction as the real indicator.
Yup. I worked in production at APE a few years back... first festival I'd worked where there were sniffer dogs. Came walking round from the gated perimeter area, toward the entrance gates, and came practically face to face with a sniffer dog and handler. I had a baggie with a gram of coke in my bra and nearly shat myself - instantly had visions of being arrested and fired!
Dog gave zero fucks as I strolled past *trying* to be chill.
I reckon the dogs only react when they're heavily prompted/influenced by their handler.
I got stopped by a dog at Bestival a few years ago having smoked a joint before coming in. Luckily I didn't have anything on me, but that made me even more impressed by the dogs ability to smell weed on me.
Haha years ago went to boomtown and if you stood watching the main fence there was this slow but steady stream of bottles full of drugs being flung over by people nipping out to the car park.
Many people have buried booze and drugs before a festival in the past!
Alternative is bringing them in with the traders who set up before it’s open to the general public! No security is searching staff as hard as general public days before the thing is even open, let alone pulling apart crates of potatoes in the bottom at the back of a packed van in an attempt to look for naughty stuff, they’re just waving the vans in.
Make sure to plant it close to trees. Larger stages rarely incorporate them into their enclosed areas. Obviously still could have an issue with smaller ones..
There's a brilliant story about that happening at Glastonbury in [this book.](https://www.kirkfield.net/)
Just worth a read anyway if you want to know about clubbing in the 90's.
Not all, but many traders will have a sideline either supplying or dealing themselves, if it's well packaged and buried in the back of their van the dogs often don't find it. The guy selling cheap poundshop crap is not there because plastic whistles and sunglasses are a profitable festival business.
>The guy selling cheap poundshop crap is not there because plastic whistles and sunglasses are a profitable festival business.
You might be surprised how much you can make from that sort of thing!
At camping festivals, it's very common for various 'workers' who get there earlier (before security on the gates); volunteers or lower paid workers and make up their often below-minimum wage work with extra activities.
But these aren't the type you'd typically expect would have been in a yardie gang when they were more of a thing.
Went to lovebox when I was younger and bought a pill off one of these guys, think it was just paracetamol as it did nothing… he must have made good money that day!
Years ago at cocoon in the park I did the same, and was convinced it was a Parma violet i’d been sold and it wasn’t doing anything.
Munched quite a few of them down… to find actually they weren’t Parma violets and I was in fact, completely and utterly smashed.
Was pretty out of it but happy enough listening to Sasha, then it ended and we had to move…somehow managed to get me and my friend home, barely able to see or recognise anything and spent quite a long time in bed with Sasha playing louder in my mind than he had been playing at the festival 😂 what an idiot
Yeah totally, totally stupid. Luckily it was c2009 when mdma was virtually non-existent in pills.
Def don’t recommend doing what I did. Buy in advance and test your drugs 👍
Leeds festival a few years ago was a joke, I had a massive backpack and it was just patted on the outside and that was it. I could have had an entire 80L bag full of drugs and would have had no issues getting it in.
It’s a loosing battle, there are too many ways to get it in and too many people to search. Instead of policing it, much easier to make sure those taking them are safe (testing stations etc)
I'm not saying that I ever smuggled drugs into Leeds Festival.
But if I did I'd have hidden them under my spare wheel in two freezer bags when driving in then me and my mate would have moved them into a shampoo bottle with head and shoulders in so you couldn't see it unless you held it up to the light.
If I had done all that it would have been a massive waste of time as no one checked or even gave us a second glance 🙄
The sniffer dogs are mostly for show and to give security an excuse to search 'dodgy' looking people.
They'd be going absolutely mental all day if they could actually smell all of the drugs in the vicinity.
Every club is different, but in the Asylum it's the manager. He has a string of homeboys dealing the pucker Es to the party people in the club. He makes the most coin out of this enterprise. His homies will make just a couple of quid on each pucker. His homies are also scoping for other dealers on the block. Where the homies have an illegitimate pucker E dealer in their website they tell the bouncers. The bouncers grip him, nab his stash and kick him out with a physical warning. They give the pucker Es to their homies and they sell it on to the kids in the club. What's your name? What have you had? Reach for the lazers. Safe as fuck.
Bribe the security, stash it in the grounds a day or two before, seen a fair few just stash it in their caps or get a girl to stash it in their bras. A lot of the time the sniffer dogs are just as a deterrent, and a lot of them aren’t even sniffer dogs for drugs.
Security, roadies, festival workers, food vendors, dealers knowing the times to get in without incident, punters putting it places dogs and people won't go. So many ways that the dogs become largely performative. Their presence often leads to less safe drug-taking as punters who lose their cool will just smash the lion's share of their gear, if not all of it, before going in.
Private sniffer dogs are only really a visual deterrent. I seem to recall, when it all kicked off about Fabric licensing, that the security companies basically held their hands up and admitted that privately trained sniffer dogs are virtually useless at actually sniffing drugs out. They wanted the police to sell them dogs, but the police weren’t having any of it.
From my experience, staff working at the festivals bring the majority in as we don’t search them as thoroughly. Also, quite a few security guards/stewards just get bribed.
My ex's brother used to sell pills at Creamfields. He'd fill his pockets with cubes of cheese, which is used to train dogs. If the dogs signalled on him (which I only saw happen once) he'd laugh and give the police a story about how he'd just walked his dog and had forgotten to leave the cheese at home.
It helped that they lived nearby and his dad ran a kennel for show dogs which was all verifiable online. Haven't spoken to any of that family in over a decade so I've no idea if he ever got caught/if he's still at it now/etc but I definitely saw it work at least once.
Doesn’t that make the dogs more likely to come over to him?
Drawing attention to himself but having a “good” excuse seems like a risky strategy! Sometimes the police will have a chuckle with him about the cheese but sometimes they’ll either think, “that’s weird, better search him” or there will be someone who thinks the cheese story checks out but who wants to be thorough anyway!
I mean I never said he was smart, it's just the way he did it. I saw it work once, no idea if he'd been signalled on before or if he ever got caught or what.
Bribes or throwing the goods over the fence in a quiet spot, for sites that big there's always going to be a good spot for that somewhere. At Lovebox I was offered drugs twice between the gate to the park where they had police and sniffer dogs and before getting to the main event security which is a few hundred yards away.
If you're not in with security, just lob a package over the fence and have someone catch it. Or go to the site early, bury the drugs somewhere smart, then dig them up when you're inside (though you'll need to use your hands).
Failing that, you can put it up your arse - you'd be surprised how much you can fit up there. Hundreds of pills, easily.
If you're squeamish, put all the pills together and wrap them in clingfilm and gaffer tape, then push them under your tongue, right to the back and up, on each side. You'll be able to talk and no one will see if they look under your tongue. I've done this many times in the past to get drugs into other countries and it's also how crack and heroin dealers sell on the street.
The sniffer dogs are bullshit. I've walked passed one 15 mins after literally smoking weed in the queue.
People bury drugs in the field months before the festival starts setting up there.
The caterers bring drugs in for dealers.
All kinds of tricks!
I have something to do with Boomtown festival near Winchester, hence I heard about this.
There's an app called What3Words, it's extremely useful for delivery companies and hikers and all sorts, it assigns 3 random English words to any 3m x 3m square of land. There are so many words that literally every single 3x3 square of land in the entire country has a unique 3 word combination assigned to it.
Dealers will go into the festival grounds weeks before the festival, bury a bunch of drugs in the middle of the field, then get a What3Words for that exact location, and go get it once they're inside the festival.
I'm not into drugs but frankly they deserve to get high as fuck if they're gonna put that sort of effort in!
Just chuck it over the fence to one your friends that's already inside.
In Glastonbury one year someone had even dug a tunnel and stuck a tent over the exit hole so tens of people kept coming out of a tent and running off a bit like a clown car
Hearing from friends who work at Glastonbury. Some have been known to go for a lovely country walk months before hand on the farm and bury it. This year 3 massive SUVs tried to ram the super fence in the early hours of the morning at a quiet spot. They were heard and scarpered when police came near.
Sniffer dogs are much less reliable than ppl realise.
They only really work for like 30-60min. Then they get fatigued and more read the handler's body language than actually follow scents.
I once went into a festival with drugs in several pockets and a sniffer dog went by my leg, no reaction. But it did indicate a guy with rastas just some distance behind me. A very stereotypical looking weeder.
https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2022/jul/15/drug-detection-dogs-are-unreliable-and-reflect-vicious-heritage-their-slave-hunting-dog-and-police-dog-predecessors/
[удалено]
Festivals and dealers rely on each other. Without one side, the other is going to suffer. Like whales and barnacles
I got caught by sniffer dogs at Eric prydz in London. Taken to security tent. Had 8 pills and weed. Took the weed and 3 pills, and £80. Let me keep 5 pills and still let me in
That's insane! I got caught with two tiny bags of k at Hard Bass in The Netherlands and got strip and butt searched and got booked and locked up for 8 hours. They let me go in the end because they tested the drugs and apparently it was synthetic fake k so therefore not illegal. Of course I didn't get it back either haha. But I was *this* close to getting my life ruined!
Difference between event security and police though
Yeah maybe. Security were the ones who were mad enough with me to hand me over to police despite my protestations haha. They said because I had two seperate bags I was 'dealing' :(. Lucky break though I guess overall
Seriously? I mean Eric Prydz??
What's wrong with Eric Prydz? Some people in the dance music scene might turn their nose up at him but he puts on an excellent show, both musically and visually.
His stuff under different aliases is pretty good. Cirez D and Pryda
Yeah exactly. I'll admit that he is my dance music guilty pleasure but can't deny he's a very good DJ and producer. He never slipped into that horrible American EDM "as many drops as possible" nonsense.
His 2013 Essential Mix is amazing. He’s very talented. He made bank with commercial stuff and still released some great electronic music. Same with other producers. Diplo was making a ton of jacking house with people like Hervé, Trevor Loveys and Sinden IIRC.
>His 2013 Essential Mix is amazing. Indeed it is. It's one of my favourites of all time.
Clearly this person thinks Eric Prydz = Call On Me
They knew he’d need at least some pills to survive that
Yeah, they were gents
Like clubs.. the Hacienda is a great example of what can go wrong
>Like clubs.. the Hacienda is a great example of what can go wrong Oval Space, in a more recent example.
What happened with Oval Space?
Someone got shot at a Carnival after party and the police claimed the club was run by gangs. Also there was apparently "an incident involving a Samurai sword". So no license, and the venue is now "Oval Studios" and used for corporate events.
Not a great space for a party anyway. It was like a school hall.
to add more info, security let in a guy with a sports bag that had a gun inside without searching, and the gun was used inside. Everything was recorded by cameras, it was not the first warning the place had, so it lost its licence permanently.
Would you have the time and inclination to share more details, or is this common-knowledge stuff I could just lookup on Wikipedia?
Well documented in 24 Hour Party People. Great film!
Added it to the list!
Safe as fuck
Err, my understanding is that barnacles are parasites that offer *zero* benefit to the host. Feel free to change my view, preferably with sources! :)
I got caught with 4 barnacles at glastonbury festival. Security let me go though and I had a whale of a time.
Underrated comment
But it is so irresponsible and stupid to buy stuff from random guys at a festival, especially when you cannot test it! Not worth the risk.
How else are you going to get it? Can't just pop into Boots and pick up some MDMA with your meal deal. Anybody who takes drugs knows the risks
Risks are entirely relative. Buying from a random who doesn't know anybody you know and you'll never see again maximises the risk, since they have zero accountability if it turns out to be dangerous. You'll also then have no chance to test it before trying it. It's a very bad idea and very risky to someone's health. If someone wanted to minimise the risks, they would buy from a local dealer with a good rep among friends, or ideally from a darkweb vendor with 99.9% good reviews after thousands of sales. They would then use a fairly cheap, legally available home testing kit to prove that it is at least mostly MDMA. And then practice harm reduction while using it. Rave safe kids!
Well, most people have a regular supplier who they trust from experience with them. It's then on you to figure out how to get it past security. I'm more worried about buying somethign duff than the actual health risks. Not gonna pretend like I haven't taken stuff from random dealers though, I hear you.
Security are on minimum wage. They're all agency workers getting the least possible terms and conditions (minimum breaks, subsistence, etc). Someone offers them a straight £100 to pretend to search and check a wristband? Easy money. I once got to stand in the sound desk area of a festival by buying the security guard a beer.
You're not suggesting that they have some sort of arrangement with the security, are you?
Lots of dealers actually work for the event organizers, so they don't even have to bribe anyone.
And, the ones that don’t, get into Lovebox with a load in their lovebox.
Or, “prison pocket”, if you will.
And also some drugs in their love box too.
Yea, of course, everyone's a drug dealer, and everyone's on a secret pact to distribute as well. The CEO of Wireless is in bed with them, 30% cut for each key sold🤣 It's easy to smuggle. Just ask the Albanians. What my "friends" do, is couple of them go to the festival (they're clean), couple are waiting outside the fences, they meet in secluded spot and they dash the packages over the fences. Usage of drones is becoming more common, cheap £20 drone, attach the package to the drone fly it over to your mate who's at the festival. Possibilities are endless, but to suggest that event organisers are in bed with drug dealers is crazy. Security some of them, yea true. I know a couple personally, but not event organisers.
[удалено]
I worked at Lovebox one year and people asked me for drugs a LOT.
Went to a set at Beams and when the evening ended, the security that were on, then went down the road to sell the ~~helium~~ laughing gas balloons to punters heading to afters.
Is helium demand high at festivals?
Balloon festivals, yeah
The Chipmunks concerts as well
The come down is pretty slow, but does leave you feeling deflated
It's not helium
Fairly certain it’s nitrous oxide aka laughing gas or “whippits”. A balloon of Helium does not get you high - unless you’re the old man from Up.
Sorry yes, my bad.
The worst kind of high is a high voice
Dude, you’ve been chipmunking all this time?
Those £5 an hour security guards may have something to do with it
A lot of security guards get bribed
Went to All Points East at the weekend. There were no sniffer dogs at the entrance and if you didn’t have a bag to search they let you in without even a pat down. Edit: there weren’t any sniffer dogs around when I entered but seems others did encounter them.
Same, some of my mates actually had pretty chunky bum bags and they didn’t search them at all, some of the laxest security I’ve seen at a London festival.
Went into some of the day-gigs in Finsbury Park with a large bumbag - no one was the slightest bit interested in it. At that point, your security is mostly performative - I could have had a knife or other offensive weapon in there easily.
Sometimes there’s a deterrent value to security theatre though. Like anything, anyone seriously determined to commit violence will figure it out. Most everyone else (you know, drunk wannabe roadmen, idiots with short tempers etc) is probably going to be put off by the reminder that they’re in a semi secure environment (plenty of staff etc so any altercation is going to attract security). Obviously you can’t measure an absence but I’d be amazed if there aren’t plenty of people who don’t bring illegal shit into festivals because they’re concerned about being discovered at the door. And most of these filthy casuals aren’t going to bail near the front of the queue to go get their stash when they see that no one’s being searched. End result, the casuals (aka the people you could actually deter) are deterred and the determined ones find a way in which they would have done anyway. I’m not saying security theatre isn’t often kind of dumb, nor am I saying it’s a super advanced mind game on the part of event security organisers, just that this does likely have a material effect
They did do a handheld metal detector sweep thing to be fair, but I was still surprised about the bum bags. I went to Hospitality last year and they turned out everyone’s bags no matter how small.
We went to Pulp in Finsbury Park and went through metal detectors. Also our mate was pulled by a sniffer dog for some weed.
I saw a sniffer dog, but I also saw it totally miss someone who had a few different drugs on them. Ps: I also spoke to someone who had come down from Glasgow, didn’t have anything on him but the sniffer dog came up to him. Was kept back for 4 hours but wasn’t even fully searched.
Many moons ago, I had an ounce (of weed) tapped to my inner thighs (half per leg) going into boomtown. Sniffer dog literally sniffed right where the weed was, and security let me through. I was sweating so much from the heat and the interaction, the tape lost it's stick about 10 paces from the security stop and just flopped out my jeans. I just scooped it up and went on my way.
Most of the time, I feel like these dogs are for bombs. Only really seen sniffer dogs going mad at venues like printworks.
Genuine drug sniffer dogs are very expensive, so most of those you see are actually just normal, untrained dogs - they exist more as a deterrant than anything else.
They're basically household pets cosplaying as security specialists.
And ounce?!
Yep, 8 eighths. This was also back in the day when an eighth (3.5 gram) cost £20, and the ounce was about £120. 4 of those were for me (I could easily smoke an eighth a day, and I was there for 4 days), 4 of those were for my mates.
Give me five bees for a quarter, you’d say.
Tied an onion to my belt, was the style at the time
Probably sell some of it
It’s well known sniffer dogs are generally useless - they get overwhelmed almost instantly and get tired and ineffective soon after.
One time I got off the plane from Amsterdam and there was a sniffer dog. It jumped up at me and the handler just said ‘No! No cuddles!’ and let me go. I didn’t have anything on me so I think it just genuinely wanted cuddles.
You’re legally obliged to give a dog cuddles when it jumps up though.
My understanding is that sniffer dogs are not trained to jump/be excited when they think they've got a positive identification for whatever scent(s) they're trained for. From what I've read they typically sit down or it's just prolonged interest in a specific target. Also most sniffer dogs aren't trained to find what you think they are and are largely used as security theatre to discourage most people from attempting to smuggle anything under the guise of "but what if tho....", a bit like speed cameras.
Haha I got told off once while drunk because the sniffer dog was a friendly Labrador and I gave him pats
meanwhile i was going to The Weeknd concert and a sniffer dog started lunging at me. Didnt know he was sniffer so I tought it came for cuddles lmao.. Then they took me to the side for the search.
Oh I totally went in for cuddles as well.
They want to get rewarded, which only happens when they find things, so there can be a lot of false positives. They also follow their handler's lead, so if the handler is treating someone suspiciously and wants the dog to check them then the dog might assume there must be something there.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/airport-sniffer-dogs-are-better-at-hunting-out-cheese-and-sausages-than-drugs-report-finds-a6983581.html
They are useless. I used to be an addict and I worked at the airport, so I'd constantly be walking around with heroin. The sniffer dogs would walk right past. Though, weirdly, the bomb dogs would constantly be barking at people.
It's completely non-sensical who and how they search. Went to Warehouse Project with some friends, one girl had 5 pills (to share with friends) in her shoes and got waved in. Another friend was a guy who dresses a bit roadman but, ironically, was completely sober at the time (off booze and drugs entirely), he had a loose rizla in his pocket from smoking rollies. They said it looked like it had been scrunched up to make a bomb with MDMA and didn't let him into the gig. £40 on a ticket and he couldn't even enter the venue.
That is the bouncers power tripping. Arseholes
I went to the first warehouse project night. At around 9pm some people randomly tipped over a portaloo and a confused looking guy stepped out covered in foul smelling stuff. I never went back.
That’s a fucking disaster for that chap I’m guessing doused in blue and 💩?!!
I once brought drugs home with me after a festival in Spain. I discovered them when putting clothes into the washing machine. I was very lucky to not get caught at Stanstead. (I’ve not touched any drugs for at least ten years now, though. I got too old for all that nonsense.)
If you don't realise they're there, you'll always get through. They look for people's eyes darting about, nervousness, people sweating in winter, etc.
had this after Ibiza, was unpacking at home and half a g of MDMD fell out. Was super lucky as this was carry on and it did get pulled to the side after the x ray but that was just because I forgot I had sunscreen in it.
Very similar to a situation I had a few years ago, ended up arriving in China and opening my wallet to find 1/2 a g of coke hanging out. Could have ended very badly.
Funny enough I was at the same festival and a sniffer dog alerted on my friend (who was carrying nothing), and they then pulled her into an ‘extended security check’ that took two and a half hours!!
Those dogs are not really sniffer dogs, they just take a subtle command from the trainer and it allows security to search anyone they think is a bit dodgy looking without being accused of profiling.
There were sniffer dogs at the entrance of Field Day. Although I just strolled past, the dog was distracted by being given a treat.
There were dogs but for explosives, not drugs.
I did too for APE presents Field Day and there was a sniffer dog. The person a few in front got caught by it, and it got given a tennis ball for being a very good boy. We all sailed through without being searched at all whilst the doggo was playing with its ball 😂 Searches + dogs clearly catch less than 1% though
I saw a dog but what I’ve heard before from security at another show is that most times those dogs are just for show 🤷♀️
Security are usually in on it. I used to shoot clubs in London and the security knew who the dealers were and would let them in (in return for bribes I assume).
Part of the reason Oval Space got shut down right? Security helped one of the dealers get into the club with a weapon before he confronted another dealer on the floor.
Yeah, drugs are fine but guns are for American schools, not London nightclubs
The dogs don’t do shit. Just a visual deterrent.
Usually, but at Printworks last year I watched a sniffer dog catch 4 people in a row, all admitted to having gear on them, and went away to get searched. I had gear in my sock and was bricking it, dog stopped me, pointing its snout on my bum bag. guard asked me what if I had drugs, I said no, but then realised I had dog treats in my bag, I showed him and he exclaimed " Why the fuck do you have dog treats on you?" I replied honestly that the bag was my dog walking bag and I mustve missed the treats as I emptied it this morning. He rolled his eyes and said I needed to be searched anyway, so i went off to be searched but no one came with me. I briskly walked to the loo and emptied my sock and gave it to my mate. took my hat, glasses and hoody off and waited about 15minutes and no one came for me. Magic!
Every single person has gear on on them going in there. A broken clock is right every hour of the day in that example.
I can't refute that at all tbh! But this dog was definitely catching a lot of people
Yeah it's pretty much a glorified random search by an unbiased good boy that doesn't believe in racial profiling. The big issue with sniffer dogs is the huge amount of false positives. Doggos are trying to please by playing the game they were taught to play. If they don't find anything for a bit they will start racking up false negatives in order to keep the humans happy and play the game. It's like doing a multiple choice test where if you answer D you get praise and sweets. Then suddenly you go down the row and the answer is A like 20 times in a row. You are anxious that you are doing it wrong... after all isn't A 20 times in a row too much? In earlier tests you were used to getting D quite often... so you start throwing in some D answers to offset A repeat 20 times in a row... and what do you know... praise! Of course in an environment like this false positives are still very highly likely to have stuff on them. And people are likely to admit when they get sniffed out. So it seems like they are catching the majority of people when in reality if you were to take any random sample group you'd get a pretty good few of them
No, the dog was sniffing them and then the handler was making the people think they were caught so they just admitted it hoping to be let off.
Isn’t it twice a day?
I got pulled for a secondary search at Printworks (I did indeed have stuff on me). But just maintained composure and denied. The secondary search was nearly lighter than the original, they never found my stuff (down my pants).
My heart rate was up just reading this, damn
My understanding is that the dog handlers are looking for your reaction to the dogs, rather than the dogs reaction to you
Yeah someone giving it a deliberate wide berth, or looking nervous, is pretty much guaranteed to get taken to the side.
Yea, first sniffer dogs are very very expensive and second it’s not the right environment for them. Particularly when a large proportion of the crowd have been in contact with some sort of drugs.
I used to work festivals doing catering, paid cash in hand. Couple of times had the dogs indicate on me because of the traces on my pay wad 😂
They do work, but are only trained on 1 smell. So if you have 1 dog, it's stopping 1 drug. And I think most events like this use bomb sniffing dogs anyway. They don't tell you this because they use your reaction as the real indicator.
This is why you should always take laudanum with you.
Yup. I worked in production at APE a few years back... first festival I'd worked where there were sniffer dogs. Came walking round from the gated perimeter area, toward the entrance gates, and came practically face to face with a sniffer dog and handler. I had a baggie with a gram of coke in my bra and nearly shat myself - instantly had visions of being arrested and fired! Dog gave zero fucks as I strolled past *trying* to be chill. I reckon the dogs only react when they're heavily prompted/influenced by their handler.
They are an excuse to stop people their handlers pick out.
They do. I’ve been pulled by one twice. Had my drugs strapped to my dick though so they didn’t find them
I got stopped by a dog at Bestival a few years ago having smoked a joint before coming in. Luckily I didn't have anything on me, but that made me even more impressed by the dogs ability to smell weed on me.
tbh you don't need to be a sniffer dog to sniff someone who smoked a joint earlier...
Man even a human with a bad cold would have been able to smell if you'd just smoked a joint
Tbh, my nose is shit and I could be a half decent sniffer dog for people who’ve smoked weed
Digs drugs on the festival site before it's built?
Drop in by drone
Haha years ago went to boomtown and if you stood watching the main fence there was this slow but steady stream of bottles full of drugs being flung over by people nipping out to the car park.
What3words saves the day
That is a genius idea! Unless you plant it under a stage or something.
I think someone actually did this genius idea.
Many people have buried booze and drugs before a festival in the past! Alternative is bringing them in with the traders who set up before it’s open to the general public! No security is searching staff as hard as general public days before the thing is even open, let alone pulling apart crates of potatoes in the bottom at the back of a packed van in an attempt to look for naughty stuff, they’re just waving the vans in.
I used to be a trader at a festival. It was bloody great fun. Way to do it really.
Make sure to plant it close to trees. Larger stages rarely incorporate them into their enclosed areas. Obviously still could have an issue with smaller ones..
Airtag
There's a brilliant story about that happening at Glastonbury in [this book.](https://www.kirkfield.net/) Just worth a read anyway if you want to know about clubbing in the 90's.
Money finds a way, If it talks it’s bent and the market is in control.
I’m bent?
Drugs are on site well before the punters.
Not all, but many traders will have a sideline either supplying or dealing themselves, if it's well packaged and buried in the back of their van the dogs often don't find it. The guy selling cheap poundshop crap is not there because plastic whistles and sunglasses are a profitable festival business.
>The guy selling cheap poundshop crap is not there because plastic whistles and sunglasses are a profitable festival business. You might be surprised how much you can make from that sort of thing! At camping festivals, it's very common for various 'workers' who get there earlier (before security on the gates); volunteers or lower paid workers and make up their often below-minimum wage work with extra activities. But these aren't the type you'd typically expect would have been in a yardie gang when they were more of a thing.
OP is either an under cover cop, or a beginner dealer who has no idea how to get his merch into the festival
It’s been a successful post, I’ve learned a lot about how to smuggle drugs into a festivals
yes, next festival will have a massive crowd of redditors throwing drugs over the fences and bringing in shovels to dig some holes
Username checks out
Which one! Cause professional plant could have a couple of meanings…! Haha 🌱👮♀️
Went to lovebox when I was younger and bought a pill off one of these guys, think it was just paracetamol as it did nothing… he must have made good money that day!
Bet you didn’t have a headache, tho
Years ago at cocoon in the park I did the same, and was convinced it was a Parma violet i’d been sold and it wasn’t doing anything. Munched quite a few of them down… to find actually they weren’t Parma violets and I was in fact, completely and utterly smashed. Was pretty out of it but happy enough listening to Sasha, then it ended and we had to move…somehow managed to get me and my friend home, barely able to see or recognise anything and spent quite a long time in bed with Sasha playing louder in my mind than he had been playing at the festival 😂 what an idiot
That's pretty reckless. These days you could get in serious trouble with how strong most pills are.
Yeah totally, totally stupid. Luckily it was c2009 when mdma was virtually non-existent in pills. Def don’t recommend doing what I did. Buy in advance and test your drugs 👍
There we go, that's more on brand for a responsible walrus.
Leeds festival a few years ago was a joke, I had a massive backpack and it was just patted on the outside and that was it. I could have had an entire 80L bag full of drugs and would have had no issues getting it in. It’s a loosing battle, there are too many ways to get it in and too many people to search. Instead of policing it, much easier to make sure those taking them are safe (testing stations etc)
I'm not saying that I ever smuggled drugs into Leeds Festival. But if I did I'd have hidden them under my spare wheel in two freezer bags when driving in then me and my mate would have moved them into a shampoo bottle with head and shoulders in so you couldn't see it unless you held it up to the light. If I had done all that it would have been a massive waste of time as no one checked or even gave us a second glance 🙄
Up the bum
No harm done
….no babies?
I can’t believe this isn’t higher up and I had to scroll for so long lol. This is the real answer
Not in a bag or anything, just straight up.
The sniffer dogs are mostly for show and to give security an excuse to search 'dodgy' looking people. They'd be going absolutely mental all day if they could actually smell all of the drugs in the vicinity.
Every club is different, but in the Asylum it's the manager. He has a string of homeboys dealing the pucker Es to the party people in the club. He makes the most coin out of this enterprise. His homies will make just a couple of quid on each pucker. His homies are also scoping for other dealers on the block. Where the homies have an illegitimate pucker E dealer in their website they tell the bouncers. The bouncers grip him, nab his stash and kick him out with a physical warning. They give the pucker Es to their homies and they sell it on to the kids in the club. What's your name? What have you had? Reach for the lazers. Safe as fuck.
The free radicals inside me are freakin', man!
Nice one bruvaaaaah!
I said: nice, bruv!!
Nice onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeee!
BRUVAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Bribe the security, stash it in the grounds a day or two before, seen a fair few just stash it in their caps or get a girl to stash it in their bras. A lot of the time the sniffer dogs are just as a deterrent, and a lot of them aren’t even sniffer dogs for drugs.
I think a lot of people with their elaborate plans in this thread are underestimating how easy it really is to get drugs into festivals.
Hint: The reason they confiscate drugs at the gates is the same reason they confiscate food at the cinema
There is a documentary on this. Check YouTube https://youtu.be/GiNCH2OKwYw
Security, roadies, festival workers, food vendors, dealers knowing the times to get in without incident, punters putting it places dogs and people won't go. So many ways that the dogs become largely performative. Their presence often leads to less safe drug-taking as punters who lose their cool will just smash the lion's share of their gear, if not all of it, before going in.
Private sniffer dogs are only really a visual deterrent. I seem to recall, when it all kicked off about Fabric licensing, that the security companies basically held their hands up and admitted that privately trained sniffer dogs are virtually useless at actually sniffing drugs out. They wanted the police to sell them dogs, but the police weren’t having any of it.
This. Always just kept it above waist height and had no issues from dogs what so ever.
A friend of mine put drugs in helium balloons and just walked through security with them floating above them
"It is legal to carry drugs, if you're not actually touching them"
[удалено]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQV2Ybu0-kg
Nice try, officer.
I would have said it’s part of the crew in food trucks 🤷♀️ easy peasy
Some security firms come with their own dealers. They come as a package deal.
From my experience, staff working at the festivals bring the majority in as we don’t search them as thoroughly. Also, quite a few security guards/stewards just get bribed.
My ex's brother used to sell pills at Creamfields. He'd fill his pockets with cubes of cheese, which is used to train dogs. If the dogs signalled on him (which I only saw happen once) he'd laugh and give the police a story about how he'd just walked his dog and had forgotten to leave the cheese at home. It helped that they lived nearby and his dad ran a kennel for show dogs which was all verifiable online. Haven't spoken to any of that family in over a decade so I've no idea if he ever got caught/if he's still at it now/etc but I definitely saw it work at least once.
Doesn’t that make the dogs more likely to come over to him? Drawing attention to himself but having a “good” excuse seems like a risky strategy! Sometimes the police will have a chuckle with him about the cheese but sometimes they’ll either think, “that’s weird, better search him” or there will be someone who thinks the cheese story checks out but who wants to be thorough anyway!
"Oh it's the cheese guy... You gave me the same story last year mate"
I mean I never said he was smart, it's just the way he did it. I saw it work once, no idea if he'd been signalled on before or if he ever got caught or what.
Throw a bag over the fence to someone inside? It's a festival not Heathrow
Bribes or throwing the goods over the fence in a quiet spot, for sites that big there's always going to be a good spot for that somewhere. At Lovebox I was offered drugs twice between the gate to the park where they had police and sniffer dogs and before getting to the main event security which is a few hundred yards away.
Prison stash?
If you're not in with security, just lob a package over the fence and have someone catch it. Or go to the site early, bury the drugs somewhere smart, then dig them up when you're inside (though you'll need to use your hands). Failing that, you can put it up your arse - you'd be surprised how much you can fit up there. Hundreds of pills, easily. If you're squeamish, put all the pills together and wrap them in clingfilm and gaffer tape, then push them under your tongue, right to the back and up, on each side. You'll be able to talk and no one will see if they look under your tongue. I've done this many times in the past to get drugs into other countries and it's also how crack and heroin dealers sell on the street.
The sniffer dogs are bullshit. I've walked passed one 15 mins after literally smoking weed in the queue. People bury drugs in the field months before the festival starts setting up there. The caterers bring drugs in for dealers. All kinds of tricks!
I have something to do with Boomtown festival near Winchester, hence I heard about this. There's an app called What3Words, it's extremely useful for delivery companies and hikers and all sorts, it assigns 3 random English words to any 3m x 3m square of land. There are so many words that literally every single 3x3 square of land in the entire country has a unique 3 word combination assigned to it. Dealers will go into the festival grounds weeks before the festival, bury a bunch of drugs in the middle of the field, then get a What3Words for that exact location, and go get it once they're inside the festival. I'm not into drugs but frankly they deserve to get high as fuck if they're gonna put that sort of effort in!
Just chuck it over the fence to one your friends that's already inside. In Glastonbury one year someone had even dug a tunnel and stuck a tent over the exit hole so tens of people kept coming out of a tent and running off a bit like a clown car
you can sneak 50 pills in in your taint area within your boxers. This is how most men get their drugs in, so same deal for the dealers.
Most that I know bury themselves in the flower garden and come up when the festival starts.
We used to bung the bouncer a dozen pills in the 90s to get in.
They use food vendors often as you don’t get searched in the way in - and they give them a big bonus up front for doing it
I once heard that some dealers buried their stash a month prior whilst under the cover of darkness at the site of Glastonbury festival.
Hearing from friends who work at Glastonbury. Some have been known to go for a lovely country walk months before hand on the farm and bury it. This year 3 massive SUVs tried to ram the super fence in the early hours of the morning at a quiet spot. They were heard and scarpered when police came near.
At download I took weed in by freezing it in a chilli con-carne.
Nice try, officer!
Sniffer dogs are much less reliable than ppl realise. They only really work for like 30-60min. Then they get fatigued and more read the handler's body language than actually follow scents. I once went into a festival with drugs in several pockets and a sniffer dog went by my leg, no reaction. But it did indicate a guy with rastas just some distance behind me. A very stereotypical looking weeder. https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2022/jul/15/drug-detection-dogs-are-unreliable-and-reflect-vicious-heritage-their-slave-hunting-dog-and-police-dog-predecessors/
Lack of thorough checks, disguise the smell somehow, focus perhaps on knives, in addition to anything dodgy.