Crowd surfing means being passed over the heads of an audience on a carpet of raised hands, usually by a performer or a fan lifted above the crowd. It looks like the ultimate act of trust, and many venues and festivals ban it outright for safety reasons, with security ready to escort surfers out.
Its origins are hazy. One of the earliest filmed examples is Iggy Pop at a festival in Cincinnati in June 1970, held aloft by the audience in a sitting position, while the first footage of the familiar on-the-back version is often credited to Bruce Springsteen at a concert in Arizona in 1980. Organisers have long tried to discourage it: in 2009 Reading and Leeds festivals announced that anyone pulled out at the front barrier would be sent on a long walk back to the arena entrance rather than returned to the crowd. The best view of a crowd surf, everyone agrees, is from the ground.