In these times of heightened security, where terrorist threats lurk on every street corner and even your mum could be a potential suicide bomber, it's at least reassuring to know that the Ministry of Defence is spending its budget where it matters: to spy on people getting pissed at Wireless.
At least that's what seems to be happening, with news emerging that the MoD is funding postgraduate research into – among other things – "crowd behaviour at music festivals". Sounds daft, right? But actually, when you think about it … no, actually, it just sounds daft. Still, here's a glimpse at how the MoD research could pan out ...
Hypothesis: We aimed to observe, using part of the MoD's vast and rather precise budget of £97,487, the behaviour of attendees at music festivals, to see if they could reveal anything whatsoever about mass behaviour patterns, social networking trends and the role of enjoyment in the digital age. Failing that, we just wanted to know why on earth anyone would pay good money to see Blink 182 in 2014.
Sample: Over 500,000 "punters" at any of the music festivals operating across the UK in 2014 (but not the ones held in a twee forest clearing featuring a feminist workshop by Emmy the Great and an Art Brut headline set – even we know that they don't really count).
Results: Our first set of results concerned the role of social networking in human organisation. It can be suggested that Twitter will never be a particular threat to national security, judging by sheer volume of tweets reading: "oi by the cider van where is everyone?!?"; "M8 I'm bolocksed where r u?" and "4o3oiera9402f". Instances of potential revolutionary outrage seemed to be limited to: "Guardian gave Palma Violets 2 stars wot a joke do they actually get paid for doing this lol".
Elsewhere, our researchers on the field observed that outbreaks of violence could be quelled by dowsing potential insurgents with Tennant's Super from 9am, causing them to pass out in the toilets by midday. Observers in the rave tent found a peculiar sense of harmony between all attendees that could possibly end all terrorism and war if recreated outside a festival setting. Sadly they woke up the next day with flourescent face paint on, having lost their notes.
Conclusion: Attendees at music festivals seem willing to put anything in their mouths, dance in any manner to any kind of music no matter how terrible (even the Fratellis ffs) and live in a manner that suggests they are sub-human at best. As such, the sample is so unrepresentative of normal human behaviour that we are forced to consider any findings from this research completely meaningless. Luckily, the total budget spent only came to £97,480, meaning we at least had £7 left over to buy some noodles from Wok'n'Roll over by the NME stage.
