30 Years of Trader Wristbands: Before the Fence and After
Somewhere in the shop there’s a pile of festival wristbands. Glastonbury, Leeds, Download, V, Helter Skelter, Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Stereophonics at Morfa, Oulton Park. Most of them say the same word: TRADER. Thirty-odd years of festivals, one band at a time.
Before the fence
I think it was ’99, at Glastonbury. We were there with the Hypnogogic Mind Machine, in one of the last no-fence years. Where we were, it was violent central. People climbing over the roofs. The neighbours dragging people round.
I rang my mate up and asked if he was coming down with his team. He said yeah, they were coming. So I said: could you do us a favour? Nip to Preston and get me an eight-foot sign with festoon lights stuck to it, and a couple of boxes of stock.
And he went, yeah, of course. All of them rocked up and just walked in with the sign and the stuff. Didn’t pay anybody a bean. That’s how easy it was.
Bands weren’t much of a barrier either. You could take them off and put them back on easily enough. We didn’t really get involved in the swapping, but there were always stories of people jumping the fence.
My favourite: a lad at T in the Park climbed the fence for a bet. He landed on the other side and snapped his ankle. When the ambulance crew came over, it turned out he’d landed in the compound where the police and the ambulances were based. They patted him down and found a big bag of pills on him.
Before the wristband there was the plastic tag. These four are all 1996 — Phoenix, UK Tribal Gathering, Oasis at Knebworth and Big Love. Same word on every one of them.
The fence goes up
Glastonbury 2000 sold about 100,000 tickets, but an estimated 250,000 people turned up. The council refused any more licences until it was sorted. 2001 was a year off, and in 2002 the superfence went up.
After the fence, the place was a ghost town for a few years. Then they just kept upping and upping the capacity. But what really changed was getting in. From 2007 you needed photo ID, a computer, and to queue online, and suddenly the tickets sold out immediately.
So the crowd changed, and the atmosphere changed. There’s no freaks there any more. What we miss about Glastonbury doesn’t exist any more.
Arena, campsite and front of house
At places like Leeds or Phoenix there was the arena, which usually closed in the evening, and the campsite. If you worked in the arena, you got an arena band. If you worked in the campsite, you generally got an arena one anyway, so you could get into the arena. Some festivals were a bit arsey about it, but usually it got sorted.
Radio 1’s Big Weekend says “Front of House”. That just means we were trading out front, no going backstage.
The Helter Skelter one says “Organisation, Guest”. That was either when we had the Mind Machine there, or a guest pass, because we used to be on the guest list for Helter Skelter.
The end of the bands
Over the years the festivals changed: fewer traders, cashless payments, card fees and VAT on top. We dropped Boomtown and V, kept Leeds, and 2026 was the first year we didn’t go. That story’s in The First Year We Didn’t Do Leeds Festival.
Recognise any of these bands? Were you there? Let us know.
Still going to festivals? Read our guide to hiding your valuables at festivals and campsites.
More from the last 30-odd years: 21 Glastonburys · Knebworth ’96 · The Four-Foot Bong