London – years of raves being blighted by violence, now security commonplace at free parties

Ridgeway 02/03/04 – various fights amongst ravers and rival crews- minor, but still not acceptable

Reading 02/03/04 – various incidents of robberies (thankfuly most stopped due to main gang member becoming disabled from contaminated gear – karma in action?) – but still a problem with chavs – also a fight over drug debts at indoor rave

Dragonmoot 04 – alleged punishment beating led to first deployment of Welsh Ambulance

NYE 04/05 – “turf war” between rival groups. ambulance deployed to collect casualties

Manchester 05 – scallies robbing and rinsing people

Bristol 05 – some reports of robberies.

Gloucester 05 – fight amongst a crew (who didn’t look like chavs either) in a small rave with a handful of peopel, over the music policy. WTF?

Frenchtek 05 – English crews attacked by locals – although a small minority of attackers and most French were sound they were heavily armed and injured a number of my friends who had travelled all the way from the UK…

Don’t get me wrong its still a bit safer at free events than townie places but this is getting a bit much. Just 5/6 years ago you wouldn’t hear of much trouble at free parties; maybe a couple robberies in dark warehouses but nothing much on the ridgeway and certainly not fights amongst crews

Some may think I’m exaggerating the trouble levels but often you do not see everything that happens at a rave unless you happen to explore the whole place, or talk to lots of people from different crews

I’m also posting this now to make people think before the hot weather sets in and people get more aggressive..

I know the world is a fucked up angry place and its the fucked up angry people who are running tings since 9/11 (a perfect example of what angry young men are capable of!) but we often justify these “naughty / illegal / unlicensed” events because there is less trouble there than at commercial events and claim that “ravers are positive minded etc”.

I’m not that much of a hippy and don’t bleat on about PLUR all the time but OTOH however it seems the gap between “free parties” and “townie socialising” is closing – there’s now a definite “macho proving yourself” element creeping in. if that happens and parties become like “litten tree on ketamine” the justification disappears – some of these events aren’t just handbags at dawn, people are getting seriously injured.

if free parties start to look more like an open air free-for-all chav fighting-fest with the NHS picking up the pieces and the costs via the ambulances, the authorities are only going to have more clout to claim “this should be done with PELs because you will have stewards and bouncers”.

if we can’t regulate ourselves, “they” will regulate things for us.