Issue 59

PEOPLE
will understand and encourage them to
talk, but we see a lot of need. People have
so much going on in their lives.
We get a lot of people at festivals with
younger crowds like Reading and Leeds.
I remember one group of lads who all
seemed happy because they’d got their
exam results but one person hadn’t
achieved what his parents had hoped and
he was really down about it.
He stayed and talked to us for a long
time without his friends and they came
back for him and were really sympathetic,
encouraging him to talk about it and deal
with it. If we hadn’t been at that festival,
that may not have happened – he wouldn’t
have had the support from us and he may
not have had the support from them. And
you can see them learning from each other
and encouraging each other to talk about
their feelings. That can only be a good
thing.
Marion: And it’s not just the fans that we
speak to, it’s also traders and others like
the people doing security.
Janet: There are so many people whose
livelihoods depend on the success of
festivals. If it’s a bad weather event, the
takings can be really down, and because
they’ve invested so much to come here,
that can have an enormous impact, that
threat, that stress.
Marion: Into the evening, as the music
gets louder and the bands and the crowds
get bigger, everything becomes much
more vibrant and there’s much more of a
buzz about. We’re really busy again. Some
people just find us in the throng – they
didn’t know we were here but they end up
stopping and staying and wanting to talk.
“VERY OFTEN YOU’LL GET A GROUP THAT COME IN TOGETHER
TO TALK AND WE’LL LOOK TO SEE THE MAKE-UP OF THE
GROUP AND PERHAPS NOTICE SOMEONE ON THE EDGE, WHO
MAYBE ISN’T TALKING. WE’LL GIVE THEM AN OPPORTUNITY
TO TALK AND THEY’LL OPEN UP...”
The atmosphere at festivals, the
friendliness, allows people to open up
that little bit more, and can help us with
what we do. That can be true of men in
particular. They may not meet in the street
and kiss and hug, unless their football team
has won or something, but here they feel
they can. Often they’ll come up and say,
“All I really want is a hug”, and not just the
young lads, men and women of all ages.
Janet: From sun down to sun up, it’s
party time, that’s the really crazy time, and
that’s when we start to get people affected
by drugs and alcohol. The melancholy sets
in and in the early hours, as people are
coming down, a lot of things can become
an issue and people want to open up. We
have a lot more volunteers on from 10pm
to 2am as that’s our busiest time.
Very often you’ll get a group that come
in together to talk and we’ll look to see the
make-up of the group and perhaps notice
someone on the edge, who maybe isn’t
talking. We’ll give them an opportunity to
talk and they’ll open up – something they
wouldn’t have felt able to do in earshot of
the whole group. Our training makes us
really alert to who it is that really needs the
emotional support.
Marion: By 6am, you’ll have people
coming off shift and then of course, we
have people starting. There is no day or
night with Festival branch!
Janet: Often, we get people coming back
more than once at a festival. Sometimes
it’s simply to say thank you – “If you hadn’t
been here last night, I don’t know what I’d
have done.”
MORE INFO
Festival Samaritans attend a range of
festivals and events throughout the UK,
from Bloodstock to biker rallies to Leeds.
Samaritans is present at between 18-20
festivals a year.
The service provides a 24 hour, nonjudgemental,
confidential face-to-face listening
service throughout each event where people
can discuss anything that’s getting them down.
Whether people feel suicidal or not they are
given the opportunity to talk through whatever
is on their mind with a non-judgemental
volunteer who is trained to listen.
www.samaritans.org/branches/festival-branch
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