Festivals have really changed since the free festival scene of the 1970s.
I went to the last ever Stonehenge free festival in 1985 which ended in the largest mass civil arrest by police in English history, the police called it operation solstice but it became better known as the Battle of the Beanfield because of the brutal tactics of the police who smashed up the homes (vans etc) of the new age travellers and clubbed anybody within reach. After this notorious event Maggie Thatcher introduced the 1986 Public Order Act.