Alan Ring, CEO at HALOS, discusses how body-worn cameras are reshaping festival security as events grow in scale and complexity.
With another packed summer season in full swing, the UK’s festival scene is booming.
Boasting a compound annual growth rate of 5.7% over the past five years, the industry continues to thrive.
The popularity of these events can also be measured in demand: Existing events are drawing increasingly larger crowds, while new events pop up across the country to excite music fans.
But as festivals expand, so too do the risks, as well as the pressure on organisers to keep people safe.
Ensuring safety in large, high-energy festival environments has always presented a challenge.
But as today’s festivals grow in size and ambition, conventional security methods are falling short.
In these conditions, where music, alcohol and emotions collide, even minor disruptions can rapidly spiral into dangerous situations if not handled immediately.
The crowd surge at Boardmasters 2024 exposed the vulnerabilities in current festival security approaches.
Attendees reported an alarming lack of timely response, with some injured individuals relying on friends rather than staff for help.
While the festival’s organisers plan to beef up security this year, they have also requested to expand to a 65,000 capacity in 2025, a decision that highlights the urgent need for scalable and future-proof safety measures that match the pace and ambition of today’s live events.
Festivals differ from fixed venues in that they function as temporary cities, often built in unpredictable open-air environments that shift constantly in environment, design and risk level.
These temporary environments lack the structural build of permanent venues, with crowded attendees, making it harder for security teams to maintain visibility and respond quickly when issues arise.
This combination adds significant pressure on security staff when managing incidents as and when they occur.
Another key challenge is staffing.
Many festivals rely on short-term staff with limited training to handle everything from crowd management and emergency response to on-site communication.
This inconsistent and decentralised setup can result in significant coverage gaps, particularly in less visible areas like campsites or the outer edges of stage zones.
Last year’s Boardmasters event highlighted a larger issue affecting festivals nationwide.
Relying solely on static staff or stationary CCTV systems is no longer sufficient when it comes to festival security.
Fixed cameras offer limited visibility and can miss key moments in fast-moving or crowded areas, particularly when incidents unfold away from monitored areas.
What is required now is a faster, more flexible approach underpinned by adaptive technology capable of responding to evolving risks in real time.
Body-worn cameras (BWCs) add a crucial dimension to on-site security by offering mobile, first-person footage that fixed cameras cannot match.
These devices capture real-time, time-stamped audio and video directly from the ground, delivering a more detailed and responsive perspective on unfolding incidents.
For event organisers, the footage is a key asset.
It captures incidents as they happen, from medical emergencies to altercations between attendees and staff interventions, providing clear evidence that supports immediate responses and longer-term needs like legal support, staff training or internal reviews.
The addition of live-streaming elevates this even further.
Security teams can track unfolding developments as they happen, enabling faster decisions, targeted interventions and a stronger ability to de-escalate tensions before they turn into critical situations.
For BWCs to be truly effective, they need to be connected to a wider, unified system.
When integrated into a secure cloud-based video platform, footage can be efficiently stored, tagged and accessed, enabling quicker responses to incidents and improving overall transparency.
Details such as GPS location, time of recording and user identification give teams crucial context, helping them track movement and activity across the site.
In fast-moving scenarios like the Boardmasters crowd surge, having this level of visibility can significantly improve reaction times and overall situational awareness.
What makes this integration so important is its ability to strengthen resilience.
In rapidly evolving situations, connected systems deliver critical information on the spot, helping teams intervene early and prevent incidents from getting out of hand.
Security doesn’t end when the final note is sung or the headline act leaves the stage.
It doesn’t even wrap up when the last attendee exits the site.
As equipment is packed away and temporary structures dismantled, festival grounds remain high-risk environments.
The aftermath of Creamfields North in 2024, where multiple trespassing incidents occurred during clear-up, identified the dangers that can persist long after the crowds have gone.
These quieter periods often operate with fewer reduced on-site staffing levels, making the spaces more vulnerable to breaches that can carry serious consequences.
During those times, responsibility for safety and accountability does not rest solely with security personnel.
By equipping medics, technicians, cleaners and security staff with BWCs, organisers can ensure that any issues are captured accurately and that all teams feel supported in the event of conflict or confusion, even after the festival is officially over.
These devices act both as an impartial record-keeping tool and protect those still working behind the scenes.
In short, BWCs help maintain the same level of accountability and vigilance beyond the main event, maintaining standards long after the music stops.
As expectations around event safety grow, organisers face growing pressure to prove they are fully prepared.
Demonstrating clear operational standards is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity.
Whether it’s for licensing approvals or in the face of media scrutiny, providing concrete evidence of safety measures is now essential to running a major event.
BWCs offer one of the most effective ways to support this need.
When paired with GDPR-compliant platforms and secure audit trails, they create a trustworthy, tamper-proof record of both what happened and the actions that were taken in response.
In the event of legal proceedings or a regulatory investigation, organisers can draw on accurate, time-stamped footage to explain what took place and account for any decisions made in the moment.
But the benefits extend beyond legal protection.
This level of documentation also builds public confidence and strengthens relationships with licensing bodies.
In a climate where reputational damage can escalate quickly, BWCs clearly signal that safety is being taken seriously and handled with transparency.
As festivals grow in size and complexity, their security systems must evolve in parallel.
Outdated approaches that rely on fixed cameras and under-resourced staff can no longer meet the demands of modern events.
BWCs, when strategically deployed and integrated into broader operational frameworks, offer a practical way to enhance safety and accountability at every stage.
It’s time for a shift in approach. Reactive responses must give way to forward planning. Disconnected systems need to be replaced with cohesive networks.
The future of festival security depends on involving fully integrated solutions alongside the traditional tools.
Today’s festivals are large-scale, high-energy environments filled with many moving parts and unpredictable moments.
With increased expectations around preparedness, especially in light of legislation like Martyn’s Law, safety strategies must be just as responsive and adaptive.
To keep pace with the nature of today’s festivals and current legislation, safety strategies at festivals must be responsive and adaptive.
Embracing technology like BWCs is a signal that organisers are serious about protecting everyone on site, from start to finish.
