Boomtown Festival Attendee ‘Slammed Against Wall’ by Security for Pro Sex-Worker Graffiti

Attendees of this year’s Boomtown Festival have alleged mistreatment at the hands of security teams contracted to police the festival, including having their access to food and accommodation restricted.

Two women have spoken to Novara Media about their experiences with Boomtown security, which they described as “aggressive” and “unsafe”. Boomtown says it is investigating the incidents.

Libby*, an artist working at the festival, was detained on 10 August after writing several pro-sex work slogans on a temporary wall in the festival’s Metropolis “district”. The 31-year-old said she was invited to draw on the set by someone she assumed to be a festival “experience facilitator”.

After scribbling the slogans “sex work is work”, “I’m a bad whore” (in reference to the popular pro-sex work pun “there are no bad whores, just bad laws”), and “prostitutes aren’t the problem, politicians are,” Libby says she was “slammed against the wall” by six security guards “without warning”.

Libby’s hands were pinned behind her back. She alleges a female security guard – who Libby identifies as the “most aggressive” – told her what she had written was “disgusting” and that she was “lucky not to be in handcuffs”. The security guard added that the “client doesn’t want it”.

Libby says the security team didn’t inform her of the reason she was being detained. Instead she was told she would be taken to Boomtown’s eviction centre, which was a short drive away from the main site.

Only when Libby arrived at the eviction centre did she discover she was being held on suspicion of soliciting sex.

A donkey with eyelashes.

Also detained at the same time as Libby was Rhiannon, a 25-year-old events producer and events facilitator for neurodiverse children. She too was picked up by five security guards after drawing a cartoon donkey “with eyelashes”, on the walls in the Metropolis area.

“Five men come around me, and they’re all shouting at me,” Rhiannon tells Novara Media. “It was so intimidating and really aggressive.”

Rhiannon, who has volunteered at Boomtown since she was 18, had also assumed graffiti was permitted on Boomtown’s walls – it is in other areas and the festival has a reputation for progressive creativity. This year’s official theme was “Revolution of Imagination”.

Both Libby and Rhiannon were searched at the eviction centre, and underwent separate interviews. Libby was questioned by a member of the security team who identified himself as a former police officer – which was confirmed by a Boomtown colleague later. He was “insidiously nice”, said Libby. When she laughed in disbelief at hearing why she was being held, her interrogator laughed too.

But he didn’t believe her account and said security on the ground reported Libby had written her personal details on the walls to solicit sex – despite photo evidence to the contrary, seen by Novara Media.

As punishment, Libby was made to wear a “final warning” wristband for 16 hours, while her artist one was removed.

The artist wristband included Libby’s personal QR code which allows Boomtown attendees to purchase food and drink at the now-cashless festival. When Libby questioned how she would be able to eat until her wristband was returned, a female security guard told her to “beg, borrow or steal from your friends” or to “bat [her] eyelashes”.

Libby’s wristband was also her entry pass to her campsite, where all her possessions were stored. She was assured she would be allowed access regardless. This wasn’t true, Libby says. Back on the main festival grounds, there was a long wait to try and sort her new temporary access accreditation, in which she was stuck in a holding space at a crew catering section while staff made calls.

Libby says her knowledge of the site as a crew member stopped her from being in an even more vulnerable position and she worries for those who received warning bands as ordinary Boomtown punters, especially given the lack of mobile phone signal and free WiFi to contact friends via.

When she went back to the eviction centre with a friend who specialises in discrimination cases against sex workers, they asked staff for more details on the final warning wristband.

“They said the system doesn’t really work and they just expect people’s friends to look after them when it happens to them,” Libby recalls. “The responsibility of duty of care is put on the friends rather than the actual festival.

“If you weren’t working the festival, you could be in such a dangerous position,” she says.

Rhiannon also had her crew wristband removed and struggled in the aftermath.

“There were points where I didn’t feel safe,” she says. “I had issues accessing my living space, even though they said I wouldn’t. I’m so grateful that I didn’t have a medical emergency because I couldn’t access my living space for a good period of hours, and it really upset me. I was cold, I was tired. I was really fed up.”

‘Slap in the face.’

Returning to the eviction centre the next day, Rhiannon received an apology and was given a £13 voucher by the centre manager to get a meal.

“It felt like a massive slap in the face – I question where the festival is heading. I have a lot of insight into how these staffing teams are run and they’re not trained adequately.”

Tom, a Boomtown venue manager who has worked with the festival for 10 years, spoke to Novara Media using a pseudonym as he wished to remain anonymous. He said: “It’s become very clear that Boomtown as a festival are cutting corners. They’re not briefing security properly.”

Tom recounted several incidents, including a 2019 face off that saw a security official take off their uniform and “square up” to him, security personnel raiding artist tents, and a break-in at their site where security wrongly detained a crew member.

“They’re not giving us the reassurances we deserve that we’re in a safe space,” says Tom. “And that is something I have seen no improvement [on] over the years.”

Libby now plans to lodge a formal complaint with Boomtown. She is clear that in her day to day life, she also works in the sex industry but wasn’t at Boomtown in that capacity and nor, she says, was she soliciting. Even if she had been, it “isn’t illegal” and Boomtown has regularly booked sex workers as performers to bolster its progressive credentials.

“Events like this are more than happy to gain from having sex workers present,” she says. “It’s fun and sexy and makes them look good through co-opting sex workers’ struggle to prove how progressive they are.”

“But there’s an unwillingness to communicate with workers or implement training on how to treat sex workers that might be at the festival because that’s too much work. They think they’ve done enough just by inviting them.”

In response to a request for comment from Novara Media, Boomtown Festival said: “The experience these festival attendees have described does not align with our core values. We are currently investigating the circumstances. We have reached out directly and are committed to addressing the concerns of those involved.”