Blogger Zoe Nicholson, @zozonico on Twitter, responds to our article V Festival is blamed for crime increase

A recent report claims that V Festival is to blame for a rise in crime in Chelmsford in the past year. Whilst the statistics seem to show that this is true, I believe that the festival must be praised for how safe it is.

It would be difficult to have such a large and popular festival in the county without there being a crime issue. However, I'm sure if you compared the rates from V Festival to the crime rates from Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, Download or T in the Park, you'd probably find that the festival, held in Hylands Park every August, would have the lowest levels of crime.

At any live music event, you're bound to have incidents of theft and drug use, but from my experience from attending V Festival for the past five years, I have always found that the security is second-to-none. Any incidents are dealt with at impeccable speed and with such a professional nature.

Last year, Sunday night at the festival saw chart-superstars Eminem and Rihanna perform, which was obviously set to cause a mass turn-out. Many fans queued at the V Main Stage all day to see these global phenomenons perform, which caused a larger crowd than the organisers had maybe expected. Irish band The Script featured on the bill just before Rihanna and towards the end of their set, conditions became more crowded and intense. With so many fans trying to get further to the front, people towards the front were being crushed and conditions became more and more dangerous, so security intervened.

The crowds were asked to take steps back, the audience were given water and the security men and women in front of the barrier reacted very quickly to vast numbers of people, predominantly teenage girls, who needed to be removed from the crowd. I have never seen security measures so efficient as this.

The security and police at the festival deserve more recognition than they are given, as conditions like these could have been much worse if their actions and professional standard had not intervened.

Furthermore, the nature of the festival is very different to that of Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds. V Festival is renowned for adopting pop culture, with many of the artists on the line up featuring in the chart and on commercial radio stations. As a result of the type of artists on the line up, it is plausible to suggest that visitors of the festival may be younger and the festival is very child and family friendly and therefore, visitors are aware of the nature of the guests around them. 

To read more of Zoe's thoughts about Essex and the media, visit her blog at http://essexinthemedia.blogspot.com/