after reading yet another report on a free party which was marred by violent incidents, and the usual debates/whinges, I decided to do some research myself – apart from my own experiences of 15 years of squat partying, there’s everything from checking the archives of this and other sites to reading countless crime reports and Police press releases from the last 5 years in all SE areas and Eastern of the UK (I don’t have sufficient local knowledge to comment about other regions/countries)

what I found was unfortunately quite harsh.. the other areas are now indeed almost as bad as London…

there is a (slightly) less violent “street culture” (where weapons are more often only used to damage property rather than people) and more affluent people – there’s no real desire to rob someone for a mobile or a camera when you already own one (or alternatively have your own cash to fund your lifestyle) .. but still a big culture of fighting and violence.

space makes a big difference, even indoor parties outside London aren’t usually that packed so there is less trouble in smaller rooms and stairwells (even so it can happen).

There are of course no stairwells at outdoor venues which makes fighting more difficult as people can run away, also in the open people tend to notice such things more and perhaps try and stop them.

However, certain aspects that cause conflict exist everywhere

A territorial mentality has been ingrained into young males over centuries and generations, from days hundreds of years ago when young men fought and killed each other after may fairs and inter-village football matches. Even now every weekend the chavs of the Thames Valley descend upon Reading to fight amongst regional lines…

All the “love drugs” (or veterinary medical supplies) in the world won’t erase hundreds of years of history, and social/gender programming!

Add to this domestic conflicts over relationships (or jealousy), people taking sides when groups/families (including pet dogs) fight – and bad feelings over financial problems such as drug debts or lost/damaged equipment lent across crews, there’s always the danger trouble may occur – anywhere.

I’ve seen some horrendous reports in my research, people from psy-trance crews getting hassled well outside “Londonistan” in a fairly remote area difficult to reach without motor transport). The crew stood up to the bullies who backed off but waited until one person from the crew was isolated and gave him a kicking.

Other stuff included people being urinated on from atop speaker stacks, and multiple anecdotes of stacks being pushed over and technics being flung across rooms – not by riot cops (who would be expected to resort to such tactics) but so-called “ravers” ( i can see the crew people wincing just at the thought of these things happening!)

But whenever things like this are sorted out “at street level” by a Good Old Fashioned British Kangaroo Court and Thorough Kicking of the guilty parties it usually ends up with the NHS hospitals picking up the injured at the public cost (and the paramedics who do so having a good old chinwag with the bobbies about how these “raver chavs” are diverting resources from treating the more deserving)

And usually a further attack on someone or something at a subsequent rave..

Maybe I’m getting too old now but wasn’t one reason people held raves so they could escape this culture of violence, commonplace in more conventional commercial leisure places?

It does seem to be getting worse – although it did happen “back in the day” I’ve noticed more angry people about at parties than 5 or 6 years ago (I’m not even talking about the early 90s which people say were brilliant but were in fact dominated by gangsters)

I’m not saying all raves are like this, clearly many go off without any problems whatsoever – been to some good ones this year and apparently even a packed London rave last weekend went off trouble-free…

But there is an increasing feeling that the safety and happiness of those who attend raves is entirely at the whim of a number of “gangs” of angry young men (rave crew == gang to a lot of “outsiders” ), who could kick off at any moment. That’s hardly a sustainable way to keep a social movement going, particularly under intense negative pressure from the authorities..