Tekno Trouble
courtesy of SchNEWS – May 2001
Copyright: SchNEWS
Last weekend, the hottest of the year, saw the party posse out in full effect with the Hardcore Conspiracy Teknival. Late last summer there was a massive Teknival involving 6000 people in Kingston, Surrey, leaving the cops none too chuffed, so they didn’t want to get caught with their pants down again.
Panik, United Systems, Underground Sound, Skirmish, Random Sound, Headfuk, Negusa Negast and other assorted rigs were out entertaining the kids all over the South East. Unfortunately our old sparring partners, the cops, were also out, trying as ever, to spoil the fun. The wacky races started on the Friday night near the Hampshire/Surrey border with an attempted party on old M.O.D. land. This was evicted under the Criminal Justice Act on Saturday morning but the sound system was allowed to leave and the free party people moved onto Guildford, where they tried to set up but again the forces of darkness put a stop to it. The next place people went to was a few miles up the road, near Cobham where about 500 danced until about midnight. This time about 150 tooled up riot cops complete with helicopters and dog units gate-crashed, with one woman beaten unconscious and needing hospital treatment. On the way out all of the systems were confiscated and so people headed towards the coast. But as ever the sound crews are still up for it telling SchNEWS “The struggle continues. They will never kill the music. Expect us back soon.”
Meanwhile down in sunny Brighton two big parties were also taking place put on by local sound systems. One was on a legal traveller site and because of the numbers living there already, ie. the travellers, the cops left it alone and the party continued for two nights. The other was at Woodingdean, where up to 1000 people were enjoying a pleasant night on the South Downs. The cops, who didn’t even hear about the party till about 4am left two cars on the track leading up to the site. However, they hadn’t been paying attention to their own adverts telling people to lock up their valuables and left their car doors unlocked. Unfortunately one of the hand brakes mysteriously released itself and the car slid down into a ditch, while theother flipped itself over and ended up on its roof in the same ditch. The cops weren’t best pleased with this and came on to site at about 10am when most people had left and nicked the sound system, the owner, his van and his records.
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