Journalist Tells a Story of How a Hi-Vis Vest Got Him to Places for Free

David Allegretti of Vice published an article about how he and his friend Sean got into various places with restricted access with the help of a regular hi-vis vest.

“The world is a stratified place. Important people get into exclusive places. Everyone else has to pay shit loads of money, or watch longingly through the fence. But there’s a loophole into getting into places for free,” Allegretti writes. “You just need to pretend to be an important person. If you see someone in hi-vis stepping through a barricade, or marching past a bouncer, you naturally assume they’re headed to fix something. This makes a hi-vis vest the keys to life.”

Allegretti and his friend decided to start the experiment from a free visit to the movies: “Hi-vis on, Sean and I marched straight past the guy at the front desk and turned into the first movie theatre we saw. It was a piece of cake. The only downside was that we were at the mercy of whatever was showing at the time, which turned out to be Office Christmas Party. Surprisingly, it was okay.”

The next place where the authors decided to sneak into was Melbourne Zoo — and despite the fact that they were nervous, Allegretti recalls, in reality this task was also easy: “Sean even gave the ticket clerk a cheeky “g’day” on the way in. We couldn’t believe how easy it was.”

After some time, Sean remembered that a Coldplay show was on in Melbourne on that day. The two friends went to the local stadium where the performance was about to begin and also managed to get in without tickets. “I guess if I could give you one piece of advice, it would be this: Go get yourself a hi-vis vest. And that’s all you need to know about life.”