Meat ban at Way Out West – staff bags searched

Gothenburg-based Way Out West, which has profiled itself as a “climate-smart” festival, has also introduced a meat ban for the entire area since 2012.

The ban also applies to those who work at the festival, and to make sure no one is “smuggling in” meat, the bags of stagehands and other staff are now searched.

– If you want to eat meat, you are free to do so outside the festival area, but you are not allowed to bring anything in. That is our policy, confirms Filip Hiltmann, press officer at festival organizer Luger for GP.

Those working at Way Out West can get free vegetarian food inside the festival area, but it is also okay to bring your own food – as long as it does not contain meat.

Staffers tell the paper that officials have gone so far in their anti-meat stance that they have begun searching stagehands’ bags and lunch boxes for forbidden foods, and those who question the policy have been told “We have to check that you are not bringing meat or alcohol”. There are also reports of a stagehand having his food confiscated, though Hiltmann questions this.

– With the bag ban, we checked all bags this year. What I think has happened is that bags have been searched and food boxes have been found with meat in them. If you’ve got meat, you’ve been refused entry, he says, adding that it “sounds crazy” that they would have opened and checked people’s lunch boxes.

Probably legal

The aim of the meat ban is to “reduce the festival’s carbon footprint“. When asked if it makes sense to control what employees eat, the answer is that “we want this policy” and that “it’s really not news”.

According to employment lawyer Henric Einarsson, it is legal to prevent employees from bringing meat onto the premises – but the food must not be thrown away, it must be stored somewhere and returned when it is time for the employee to go home.

– Alternatively, they can tell the employee to go home, drop off the meat, and come back without it. They can also search employees’ bags if it is for security reasons, he continues.