I guess most of you will have noticed by now there’s actually a “robo-Hugh” on the boards as well who relays excellent listings of club events to the pay party sub forum automatically every hour..

this is an excellent idea, particularly as its becoming difficult/impossible to use boards to plug unlicensed parties as the conservative backlash deepens across the world…

but has anyone noticed that both within the UK and abroad parties now seem to be limited to certain areas of the country or certain countries?

in the UK it seems that London and a few Midlands / Northern cities are getting most of the events, and there is less and less in the SE or the SW; I fear this is because the nimby brigade have been very succesful at getting venues shut down in these areas (unfortunately as well as noise they need only cite “middle class raver kids end up in rehab” which is fairly common in our area) whilst at the same time a glut of free parties which occured until 2004 meant people didn’t support club nights as much in these areas..

and in the EU countries the events seem only to happen in countries which have got a more liberal attitude for drugs (or less effective anti-drugs policing – which as far as “antis” are concerned often equates to the same thing)

this doesn’t seem too sustainable to me… particularly as in the countries where raves have been hitherto tolerated there has been a backlash (CZ being a good example!)

OTOH perhaps its time for the crews of the UK to start desiging “euro-style” events like in NL which include stuff like art, robots etc for daytime use of venues, thus getting a wider, more diverse audience which is more likely to get the nod from a licensing committee?? I would hope the authorities in the SE are realising they perhaps need to license a few more “rave” venues, or risk a lot of people going back to binge-drinking which wouldn’t do much for the public order in some areas….