glad to hear you made the best of it, but its a shame the party ended in this fashion.
12/1am appears to be the standard time for legal music events in East Anglia to close down, unless the venue has got an extended license (which needs to be sorted out in advance).
As an exiled Londoner I consider it way too early (its 4-6am in many London venues and 2-4am in SE England) but thats what people democratically voted for here in the local Councils, If people disagree with the closedown time of a legal venue the only accepted way is to lobby the media and Council.
I think you can also get a TENS license for an extension in some areas.
I’m sure ravers aren’t the only people who hire village halls and would like the event to go on a bit longer sometimes, but everyone else seems prepared to work within the rules. The other problem is that village halls tend to be quite near residential areas (at least the ones round here are..) as many were around before everyone had cars or have been situated in a place where all the community can get to including kids/old people)
Somewhere in the agreement signed for hiring the hall (or as a notice somewhere) it probably stated that the event should stop by a certain time, and the cops (working with the council environmental health) are within their powers to ask the event to cease for any reason they consider reasonable. They could close down Eastern Haze or Pams House at whatever time they choose if they had a good enough reason!
The hall manager and cops were carrying out the standard procedure to enforce the licensing laws, if incidents of disorder then broke out it goes down as a black mark associated with these sorts of events.
On my side of the Waveney Suffolk Constabulary now consider hall parties to be a “potential source of disorder” and no longer permit them to happen..
