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Music

North London Residents Have Started a Campaign to Ban Wireless Festival

C'mon guys, is the line up really that bad?
Daisy Jones
London, GB

There are a lot of reasons to not like Wireless Festival: the over-zealous brand sponsorship, the fake grass, the sea of Hollister and aviators, the extra charges if you want to actually see the stage just so you can Snapchat it. However, the residents of Finsbury Park (where it's based in North London) aren’t bothered about all that. They don't care if Kygo's stage time is later than BBK, or if The 1975 are on after Bryson Tiller. They don’t like the festival because of the noise, the crowds and the mess. In essence, they don’t seem to like festivals in general. And as such, they reckon Wireless should be banned.

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According to The Friends of Finsbury Park – who have posted a formal objection on their website – last year’s Wireless attracted too many people and “there were serious safety issues when hundreds of gatecrashers stormed the barriers, residents complained of excessive noise, disruption, and antisocial behaviour in streets surrounding the Park.” They also pointed out how “the event caused severe damage to the fabric of Finsbury Park, destroying the grass areas where Wireless was held, with thousands of pairs of feet turning them into dusty scrubland which stayed ruined for months.”

As well as this, some residents have complained there are way too many drug dealers selling way too many drugs. “We received a number of representation from concerned local residents who had observed drug dealers operating with apparent impunity and making no efforts to conceal their activities,” they wrote, adding (as a side note): “Some drug dealers operated on bicycles.”

London solicitor Susan Ring, who is helping them with their campaign, is also sick of the thousands of pairs of feet and drug dealers on bicycles. She thinks the park should be used as the Victorians intended. In a statement posted on their site, Ring commented: “The Victorians passed legislation to form Finsbury Park for the health and enjoyment of the inhabitants of North London, so it is ironic that in what might be thought of as a more civilised age, the Council is now seeking unlawfully to close large sections of the Park off in the high summer at just the time when green space deprived Londoners would want to use the Park.”

So there you have it. The endless and monotonous complaints about this year's Wireless Festival line up won't stop it from happening, but the summoned power of age old Victorian Britain might just do the trick. What a time to be alive!

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