“It just started with me really wanting to go to a music festival,” explains Marcus Haney. “I’d never been to one before. It was called Coachella, out in LA, and a buddy and I just thought, ‘You know what? We’re going no matter what.'”
“It was an amazing lineup, the girl I had a crush on was going, and I just could not miss it.” For some, that determination might see them working multiple summer jobs, pawning some belongings or even selling a car. But Marcus and his friends went a different route.
“You’ll see in the movie, we wore all black, snuck in the night before, slept underneath truck trailers backstage, faked some wrist bands, and ended up getting into the photo pits and ultimately on stage with the headliners.”
If you haven’t figured it out, Marcus and his friends snuck into Coachella. It wouldn’t be the last music festival that the 26-year-old professional gatecrasher snuck into. “That bit me, I got the music festival bug, and it’s been a crazy, wild four years since,” he says.
That first experience set Marcus on a four-year journey, sneaking into nearly 50 music festivals around the world, including Coachella, Glastonbury, and Bonnaroo. All the while, Marcus was documenting his journey.
“It was more about bringing a camera along as a prop to look like I belonged there,” he explains. “That was from the very first one, actually. I stole my film school’s old film camera from the ’60s and more people were looking at that than my fake wristband.”
“I was documenting stuff just for fun because I love shooting. Luckily, I always had a camera with me, because I just love shooting and love music.” That love for shooting and music eventually culminated in No Cameras Allowed.
The feature-length documentary details Marcus’ experiences sneaking into music festivals and even the Grammys, rubbing shoulders with bands and artists, and eventually being invited on tour with Edward Sharpe and Mumford & Sons.
“Sneaking into the Grammys was an absolute mental mind-bender, that was just so, so wild,” Marcus recounts when we ask him about some of his most memorable covert operations.
“Bonnaroo was a huge festival I snuck into early on and since sneaking into that — it was the second festival I ever snuck into — I’ve been back with Elton John as a headliner and Mumford & Sons as a headliner this year.”
“I just had this crazy pinch-myself moment where I thought, five years ago I was at Bonnaroo, not supposed to be there, looking up and there’s like a helicopter with this badass photographer leaning out the side door taking photos from above.”
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, some day.’ And this past Bonnaroo I got to lean out of that side door and have Mumford & Sons on the ground posing for a shot. It’s a complete pinch-myself moment. Those kinds of things don’t feel real when they happen.”
But things did occasionally get real for Marcus. “In the early days it used to happen all the time,” he says when we ask him about run-ins with security. “Like at Bonnaroo… I got thrown out and they thought I was gonna sneak in again, which I was, there was one band left to see.”
“They put me on like a ranching, ATV golf cart thing, where they kept a hay bail. They drove me like four miles into the middle of nowhere and just dropped me. I remember at Sasquatch being tackled by security guards a couple years ago in Washington.”
“And then again in Washington I was with the Mumford boys, who were putting on their own festival, and the same security team was there and I thought they wouldn’t remember me.”
“I was walking backstage to grab a shot and this one guy puts his arm out and stops me and says, ‘Moving up in the world, I see.’ I see the same security guards at gigs from years ago and we catch eyes once in a while.”
So what are some of the tricks that Marcus has picked up to avoid getting caught? “These days, to get into the festivals, I’m not really sneaking in too much, thank goodness. It’s a lot easier.”
“They thought I was gonna sneak in again, which I was, there was one band left to see.”Indeed, Marcus is now buddies with many top festival promoters. “If I’m sneaking in these days it’s because it’s a dare with a hefty reward attached to it or I’m sneaking in with a bunch of my friends to get a huge crew in,” he says.
“We just got smarter and relied more on getting past security at the right time and using fake wristbands, as opposed to just jumping a gate and running. Although jumping a gate and running is by far the most fun way to do it.”
“When you see the film, you’ll realise it’s not a how-to on how to sneak in,” Marcus insists. “It’s not about telling everyone to go sneak into a festival. It’s more like a metaphor about how there are other ways to get to where you want to be than going the laid out road society has open for you.”
So what would Marcus tell someone thinking of sneaking into a music festival? “I’d say that if you really want to see music and have no other way of getting in, as long as you don’t hurt anybody and don’t make a big ruckus about it and you’re truly there to see the music… I can’t publicly say just go sneak in.
“I’m not telling people not to do it, but I’m also not saying, ‘Hey, just go sneak in.’ Since then, I have seen the other side of it all and been with a lot of bands of every size and a lot of those bands are really, really well-off and others are just getting by day to day.”
“Having one hit on the radio doesn’t mean what it meant 20 years ago. With festivals, a couple people sneak in, it’s not the end of the world. Those bands still get paid the same thing. Those festivals are making an insane amount of money, the tickets are so expensive, everything there is expensive.”
“So it’s like you’re not taking away from much if a couple people sneak in. If you get into a show and a really cool band is headlining that show and they’re still touring around in a van and sleeping on people’s floors and stuff and your ticket will really count, that’s a different story.”
When Marcus looks back on his own story, he has no regrets. “I can’t say that I regret it, at all, and I can say that the backlash that people have been expecting to come really came in a very minimal way.”
“You’d think that artists would be really super pissed about it and you’d think the festival would be really super pissed about it, but all the artists that were involved in the film, that I stole footage of and used their songs, ended up letting me use those songs and championing the film.”
“And all of the festivals except one festival have since been like, ‘Hey, if you’re coming this year, let me know how many passes you need. Take some photos, post them. You’ve captured our festival in a way that we couldn’t have.”
“So I’ve gotten really close with a lot of festival promoter heads and it’s been this amazing relationship since and now we work together and make content together. At the end of the day, I wasn’t ever trying to show anyone how I snuck in.”
“What drove me from day one was live music, that magic thing that happens when you play an amazing band play an amazing set, with all these people going through the same experience together, that don’t know each other, there’s something really powerful about that.”
“It’s impossible to convey what that feels like exactly via TV or movies or YouTube,” Marcus admits, “it’s impossible to have that feeling. So my goal is not necessarily to get that feeling across to everyone but maybe compel people to go and get that feeling on their own.”
“And it’s happened, because I’ve been in photo pits in festivals since where multiple people in the front row will grab me and say, ‘This is my first festival, I saw your film and I can’t thank you enough. Now I get it, I get why all my friends are crazy on music.'”
“Until you get that live experience, it’s impossible to convey, so if people get excited to go see it on their own, that’s what makes me stoked. And those people all bought tickets, for the record.”
Marcus Haney will touch down in Australia this month, appearing at exclusive screenings of No Cameras Allowed and will be answering all your questions during special Q+As afterwards – more details below.
No Cameras Allowed Australian Screenings
Wednesday, 4th November 2015
Chauvel Cinemas, Paddington NSW
Tickets: James Marcus Haney
Thursday, 5th November 2015
New Farm Cinemas, New Farm QLD
Tickets: James Marcus Haney
Wednesday, 11th November 2015
Cinema Nova, Carlton VIC
Tickets: James Marcus Haney
