Lister

By Sune Urth
Translated by Morten Winkler

Every year, tens of thousands of people buy tickets for Roskilde Festival. An army of volunteers are ready to make the festival an unforgettable experience. And then there is a small group that says no to the commercialization of the festival and jump the fence.  

Jesper and Oliver are two of them. They tell me about it later when we are sitting outside in the grass. Oliver is tall and skinny. Jesper moves like a prairie dog, looking around all the time and scratching his hair in short movements. He speaks in a fast and precise manner.

”We came over to entrance East, and there was a hole in the fence that we crept through. Then we walked up to fence number two, and somebody had pushed it over, so we could walk right in. Then we changed T-shirts and threw a pair of sunglasses on,” he says, and Oliver adds:

”We had made these wristbands of rubber tape beforehand. In the dark they feel okay, and we had seen the blue and white volunteer wristbands back in Copenhagen, so we knew the colours.”

Can be expensive

However, it is a different story to get in to the actual festival site. It requires steady nerves or a great load of alcohol. You have to be prepared to start running, if one of the entrance guards gets hold of the wristband. It is regarded as illegal trespassing and will be punished accordingly with a fine of up to DKK 5000.

Jesper explains that he had not actually planned it. He got off early last Friday and therefore had an unexpected weekend off, and he has to go home early Sunday morning, so he figured he didn’t have room in his budget for some DKK 2000 for an impulse bought ticket.

He knows it is anti-social and does not try to defend himself but talks quite openly about the kick you get out of taking to your heels and disappearing from the guards and into the crowd. I must seem unappreciative, because he gives me the phone number of a friend, who has jumped the fence several times.

Misunderstood anti-capitalist statement

A calm voice answers the telephone.

Anders describes how he jumped the fence from 2005 to 2007. It was a mixture of juvenile daring and wrong money priorities disguised as political awareness.
 
”There are lots who say that it’s because the festival has become too commercial, you know, the whole anti-capitalist statement,” he says and goes on declaring that it is nothing but an excuse for those who cannot be bothered paying. And then admits that there is also more to it:

”Then it’s an adrenaline kick that can keep you running for a whole night. When you spurt through the gate and the guards stand there yelling after you.”

Is a volunteer himself

But it is only a momentary stage. For the past two years, Anders has worked as a volunteer at the festival, and he is here this year with his girlfriend, and they have had almost all their shifts together. He does not think he will bother jumping the fence again. In the long run it is a strain having to watch out for the guards all the time.

”It’s actually pretty cool to have a wristband.”