The events sector is facing potentially huge losses, with 826,000 individuals admitting to deliberately entering a festival, music or sports event without paying in the last five years. With tickets for an event such as the Reading Festival costing GB pound 155 for a weekend’s entertainment, promoters face losing millions of pounds in revenues as a result of these ‘fence jumpers’.
Alarmingly for the industry, one-in-20 of those people questioned (equivalent to 2.2 million GB adults) believe that entering an event without paying is morally acceptable. The research suggests that 16 to 24-year-olds are the least concerned with avoiding ticket costs (with 11% of those questioned thinking such behaviour was morally acceptable).
In addition, one-in-ten 25 to 34-year-olds were of the same opinion, while half of those (5% of those questioned) admitted to having committed the crime in the last five years.
Regional disparities in security provision
The research also suggests regional disparities in the security provided at music and sporting events. Approximately one-in-ten adults living in Greater London thought that attending an event without paying was morally justifiable, but only 1% of those in the Capital admitted to actually having done so. Only 3% of those in the Midlands considered entering an event without paying to be morally acceptable.
Speaking to info4security about the survey results, Mark Hamilton – managing director of G4S Events – said: “Revenue protection is a key concern for the music and sports industry. Unfortunately, many Britons don’t regard it as morally reprehensible to enter an event without paying. It’s the same attitude that sees Britons that would not dream of stealing a DVD from a store downloading music illegally, or purchasing a copy on the black market. Given this attitude, it’s vital for event organisers looking to protect their revenue and ensure the Health and Safety of event goers that robust security measures are in place.”
In recent times, the organisers of events like the Glastonbury Festival have successfully reduced the number of people ‘fence jumping’ by installing a robust perimeter security solution.
The fundamentals of the survey
For the survey, 1,002 adults aged 16-64 were interviewed online by TNS between 8-10 April. The sample has been weighted to represent the adult population of Great Britain aged 16-64. References to ‘people’ here mean GB adults aged 16-64
Everything you need to know about… G4S Security Services (UK)
G4S Security Services (UK) employs 15,500 people throughout the UK, working with a wide range of public sector and commercial clients (including 41 of the FTSE 100 companies). The company provides specialist security services to over 5,000 customers across a range of sectors including retail, Government, facilities management, the financial sector, events and transport.
G4S Security Services (UK) was formed from the merger between Securicor plc and Group 4 Falck A/S’s security businesses which was completed in July 2004. The organisation is part of the international security solutions group G4S plc, which recently entered the FTSE 100 Index.
Everything you need to know about… G4S plc
G4S is the world’s leading international security solutions group specialising in assessing current and future risks and developing secure solutions to minimise their impact across a wide range of geographic markets and business sectors.
G4S is a major provider of risk management and protection solutions to Governments and major corporate customers around the world, and is an expert in all aspects of local and international secure logistics.
G4S is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange, and has a secondary Stock Exchange listing in Copenhagen. The plc has operations in over 110 countries and employs more than 530,000.
