Why is there always a riot at Reading festival?

As one of the star events in the festival calendar, Reading festival receives a lot of media attention, usually for the mud (which this year was everywhere) or for the antics of the star performers—this year Guns n’ Roses, for a poor performance and colossally bad timekeeping. One aspect of the festival, however, sees no coverage. This is the fact that, for the last few years, the Sunday night’s music is followed by what can only be described as a full-scale riot.

I do not use the term lightly, so let me give you an idea of the carnage. The most noticeable thing is fire. It’s everywhere, and consumes almost everything. It’s no exaggeration to say that if you find somewhere to sleep that night, you're incredibly lucky. Tents, chairs, bags of rubbish: whatever the mob can find, it will burn.

The venom directed towards security is quite staggering. Moving in groups for protection, the mostly Scottish security staff will be the targets of many types of projectiles, including glass bottles. Despite their best efforts to evict the troublemakers, they find themselves overwhelmed by swearwords and missiles. Last year the mob found its destination blocked by a huge group of riot police, such was their loss of control.

The fires give the campsite an orange glow, punctuated by plumes of smoke and the bright flashes of exploding aerosols. For the mainly middle-class population of the festival it must seem like armageddon.

So why does the friendly atmosphere of drinking and dancing degenerate into such chaos?

Part of the answer must lie in the social class of the festivalgoers. Having led sheltered, comfortable lives the opportunity to participate in something so dangerous, so exciting and so rebellious must be intoxicating. But this cannot be enough on its own.

If I could put forward a theory, I’d suggest that it must have something to do with the feeling that, after Sunday night, nothing will remain. When this oasis of beer and music feels like its going to finish it becomes very easy to be lulled into the mindset that none of the violence, none of the fire will have any meaningful impact. It’s akin to being at the end of the world.

What compounds this atmosphere is the scent of teenage rebellion in the air. With so few restrictions on sex, drink and drugs Reading Festival is the very place a teenager has been searching for: somewhere to be free, away from mum and dad, somewhere you can be yourself. The knowledge that one will soon have to go home is intolerable, and so mayhem is directed at security, who are the personification of years of adult figures trying to ruin the fun.

But daybreak totally dispels this illusion of freedom and rebellion. For all the talk of anarchy, there's something base and animalistic about the darkness. If this is what the Reading experience is about, then I’ve certainly outgrown this rite of passage. For my younger brother however, this pretty much guarantees he'll be on the Internet trying to buy tickets for next year as soon as they come out.