First of all big apologies to anyone that ended up stuck with nowhere to go. We managed to set up some of the soundsystems in basements under houses eventually but there was no way we could fit everyone in so it couldn’t go on the phone line. Most people seem to have made it to impromptu house parties but we’re truly gutted for anyone that had to sleep in the station :'(
The important thing is, nobody got arrested and all the soundsystems got out without being stopped.
At the first site, the gates were on rollers that opened sideways and because they hadnt been opened in years they came off their track and jammed so we couldn’t keep the police out, they arrived in seconds and drove right inside and chased everyone out. We tried to get everyone to storm the warehouse and sit inside but the crowd were understandably intimidated by the police and stood outside, so with no protection for the rigs we couldn’t start setting up.
We decided to pull out before anyone got nicked. At the backup we had a bitch of a job getting in. We had to improvise a plan to get everyone there and chose victoria as the nearest meeting point that everyone could find quickly and a big crowd might not be too obvious, but we didn’t know there were loads of police next door for the ricky hatton fight at the MEN arena. The police presence was huge and the crowd would have been followed to the party, plus there were lots of reports of plain clothes CID trying to blend into the crowd. We had people there to lead the crowd to the party but by the time we were into the building we knew police were already waiting at the end of the road so we got out while we could.
Had we had an extra 5 mins before the police arrived, or managed to close the gates, it all would have been a different story. Had the police just let the party continue, we would all have had a great night and the police would have had NO HASSLE whatsoever. Because the police stopped the party they had to cope with huge crowds of people with nowhere to go and waste at least 100 officers all over victoria station alone! do they really have nothing better to do than spoil everyones saturday night for no reason?
One way or another the police were there very quick, there was a security guy over the road who we didn’t find out about until the last moment and it was too late to sort out another place. Maybe the police had the partyline number or maybe they responded extremely quickly to a call from the security guard over the road, it was so close but we failed.
Massive thanks to everyone who worked SO SO HARD to put this party on and gave their time and in many cases money. everyone worked really hard and took risks just to give a bunch of fellow party people a great night out and it warms the heart that there are so many people out there prepared to do that.
Thanks for coming and thanks for trying everyone.
