LONDON, UK (Glastonbury Festival) - Music-lovers are being mugged for tickets at the Glastonbury Festival after a wall was erected to deter gatecrashers at Britain's answer to America's Woodstock bash, police said on Saturday.
The Berlin Wall-style "superfence," which is 12 feet high and has 16 watchtowers, was built after the 2000 festival at the rural site was overwhelmed by tens of thousands of gatecrashers.
"One hundred and forty six tickets have been stolen, together with mobile phones, wallets and cash," police in the southwest Avon and Somerset region, which includes Glastonbury, said in a statement on the attacks outside the gates.
Police said up to 100,000 people had broken into the 2000 festival, prompting organizers to cancel the event last year.
Organizers boosted security this year, spending $1.3 million on the fence and drafting in more than 1,000 security workers and 600 stewards. Police also brought in mounted officers and dog handlers to patrol the perimeter fence.
The 100,000 festival-goers, who paid 100 pounds ($153) a ticket, have transformed farmers' fields into a sea of multi-coloured canvas, pitching their tents as close to the music stages as possible.
SIXTIES SPIRIT
That was in stark contrast to the first event in 1970 when about 1,500 hippies paid one pound ($1.50) each to hear a handful of bands, including Britain's Marc Bolan and T-Rex.
A year earlier, up to half a million young Americans flocked to the famous music festival at Woodstock in New York State which became an iconic snapshot of the 1960s.
Glastonbury has grown into Britain's biggest open-air music festival -- as famous for mud-clogged fields, overflowing toilets and drug-fueled free love as it is for music.
Highlights this year included rock veterans Rod Stewart and Roger Waters , and British bands Coldplay , The Charlatans and Stereophonics .
Police said that despite the muggings outside the entrance, crime inside the festival was lower than in 2000. By Saturday evening on the second day of the festival, there were 315 reported crimes, down from 815 during the same period in 2000. "The atmosphere is brilliant and crime is well down on 2000," a festival spokeswoman told Reuters. "Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves."
Two perennial Glastonbury features, inadequate toilets and torrential rain, were not to be seen on Friday and Saturday.
Organizers said they had built more than 2,500 toilets which were being emptied daily, a far cry from when festival-goers were forced to use trenches at the side of the fields.
Dry conditions over the last two weeks prevented the quagmire normally associated with the festival.
