The Leeds Festival 2022 app trying to reunite people…

The Leeds Festival 2022 app trying to reunite people with lost passports, phones and even pillows

A volunteer run charity at Leeds Festival are urging people to download an app to prevent the piles of lost phones from building up.

Festival Angels, a volunteer run charity, have worked at Leeds Festival for the past eight years in a bid to help return lost items from phones to pillows and ID. This year the charity are working with a new app which they hope will prevent the piles of lost phones from mounting up.

Volunteers of the charity have claimed they have had lots of lost items handed into the tent so far, but fear most lost property won't be returned to its owners as people are unware that they're here.

Amanda Rosewell, volunteer for Festival Angels for the first time at Leeds festival this year, said: "There is an app this year, called 'Link Happens,' the idea is people register their phones and you get a lock screen with a QR code where you put all your details on it, then if your phone is handed in its got all the details of who it belongs to on it.

"Because its the first time that the apps been used here its not that well known, so were getting a lot of phoned handed in without the app on them - the system is very slick, Festival Angels have done it for eight years - we have got it down to a fine art now.

"People can come in and say 'I've lost something' then when everything is registered they can scroll through the inventory and say 'this description sounds like my belongings' - from my point of view if there are lots of phones which haven't been given back I think there hasn't been enough joined up talk between the security and the cleaners on where lost property is."

A 24-year-old, who did not want to be named, said: "To be honest if I lost my phone I wouldn't know to look for the tent, I didn't know it was there I would have just thought oh its gone forever, I've lost it, someone will have nicked it."

Amanda added: "We're here, we've always been here, we're always placed next to welfare."

Festival Angels also have volunteers who wander around the campsites and arena looking for lost property and asking people on camp if they have any lost property to be handed in. They also have people driving around the outskirts of the festival grounds looking for lost or vulnerable people to help them back to where they need to be and provide refreshments to working security staff out there.

Amanda said there has been a lot of lost property handed in across the three day festival. She said: "We've had lots of phones, keys, ID, passports and wallets - but we take everything including jewellery, pillows, coats, bags and everything."

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