Glastonbury Festival 2023 – Sun, stats and social media

The social media team’s brief for 2023 was to treat the festival ground as an additional neighbourhood policing area, policing the digital beat in much the same way that they do their neighbourhood social pages. The five main objectives the team focused their efforts on were increasing trust and confidence in the force, ensuring festival goers felt safe, preventing crime at the festival, building an engaged following for if they needed to issue an urgent appeal and enhancing their own staff’s pride in the organisation.

Initially, the team were met with apprehension about getting involved with social media from some officers but after a series of meetings with volunteers, plus the reassurance that the team would be there to support, officers were happy to be involved. To alleviate fears of posting something contentious and landing themselves in hot water, the team set permissions within the Orlo platform so all posts required validation and approval from the team before going live. The validation tool allowed officers to protect themselves as well as the organisation, and gave them the confidence to collect some amazing content over the course of the festival.

The dedicated social channels helped them share information on travel, weather safety and advice on staying safe while festival goers were in the Glastonbury bubble – not watching the TV news or reading newspapers but relying on their social feeds to keep them up to date.

Since launching the festival social accounts, the team have built strong relationships with festival organisers, Counter Terrorism Police and other key stakeholders. The collaboration on social media with these partners has meant the team have been able to capitalise on the exposure to new audiences, boosting reach and engagement.

Engaging with attendees face to face is never a problem at Glastonbury Festival – officers often get surrounded by people wanting a photo with them – very different from what they face when out on their normal patrols. All the wonderful feedback the team received in the comments and DMs shows they got it right and achieved their objectives – creating excitement, keeping people safe and building trust in the Force.