Forums › Rave › Free Parties & Teknivals › Organizing Free Parties and the law
Hello, this is my first post on Party Vibe, so my apologies if it is in the wrong place 😉
I’ve recently been looking into Free Parties and Free Festivals and I really like the DIY community attitude of them, and would quite like to organise my own.
I’ve read through most of the topics on here, but many of them are either out of date or dont explain the law that well, i know this isnt always possible due to the fact the police watch this forum.
First the legal avenue, if i were to try and organise a Free Party/festival by getting a TENs etc. what sort of roadblocks am i going to face? I’m ok with the odd skepticism of the council, but by going through a TENs am i likely going to have to have lots of H+S, security and other things in place that will put me out of pocket and ruin the atmosphere?
Any further information on the legal avenues would be great.
Illegal, If I were to organised a little party in a field with under 100 people, in the event the plod do pop down is much going to happen? I intend to be compliant with the police, and this seems to be a grey area in most threads and the CJA, from my impression the CJA says that the police ask you to leave, if you dont they seize your equipment?
Basicly, if i put on this little party, what is the likelihood that the police will pop down and take away all my stuff on their first visit? And when talking to the police should I make sure not to let on I am the organiser or DJ?
other questions
How does squatting fit into this whole thing?
Does the time of day make a difference? For example, if you set up and just playing from 3pm to 11pm is that less likely to get any unwanted interference?
I really like the idea of free festivals, can people informally just get together somewhere and have a little festival, or is pretty much any gathering of people illegal?
And, finally, is it the music which is illegal, or the gathering of people in the first place?
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I want to organise an underground music event with a nice DIY, strong community vibe. I’m not too bothered whether I have to go through legal or illegal means. I just want to make sure that If i were to go through legal means, the requirements of the council wouldn’t destroy the vibe, or my wallet.
And if I were to do it illegally, what I would be facing.
firstly, the UK is 4 countries – Scotland has completely different laws to England and Wales. Several ravers from NI have said on here that holding any form of rave is inadvisable due to issues with paramilitaries on both sides.
Scotland does not as yet have TENS (well it didn’t last time I’ve checked).
Attitudes in England and Wales vary widely between local council areas. it may seem surprising but its not the Council who are the problem but local people what don’t like noise or have seen drugs cause issues in their communities. however should you get a TENS the council requirements aren’t as harsh as folk think and are basic common sense.
what the Police do depends on what the locals ask them to do. Their surveillance is actually only to catch the blatant or stubborn and to gather evidence after events have been busted. raves only become illegal when someone has complained but now it takes just one moaner to do so and the cops take action.
squatting is really only advisable if you genuinely need a house. Squatting buildings to party in is now viewed as burglary, not squatting and fucks things up for genuine homeless folk.
penalties vary and can be anything from simply having the party shut down and being allowed to leave to seizure or even court cases and prison, although increasingly most parts of England have a zero tolerance policy, as England is small and affluent younger people think nothing of driving 200 or so miles.
I did rather bizzarely get advised by a idealistic young hippy girl, a councillor and a policeman (in a short space of time) that the Council was willing to consider TENS apps for music events in local venues, though at present my town lacks suitable venues.
Welcome to PV, GL’s advice is sound BTW. Stick around the site and you will surley find your way around the system.
Thanks GL 🙂
Yeah, im down in the SE, which seems to be a bit harder to pull off raves if this forum is anything to go by. Round where I am I’ve never seen or heard of a rave, and so im trying to get something of that nature started up.
I’m just trying to find out a bit more about the legal side of raves, ideally Id like to go with a couple of mates, and friends of friends out in the middle of nowhere and rave all night. But since its SE, ‘nowhere’ doesnt really exist, and someone always lives within a mile, so its quite likely I would get a visit from the police.
From what i’ve read with SE being ‘partied out’ I want to make sure the police are going to snap at the slightest noise.
I wouldnt think that about 50ish at the most people dancing in a field would get people too angry, and I’d assume the police would just ask us to be on our way if anything did happen, but I just want to make sure.
I’d love to organize a free festival for next year, or 2014. I dont think its really possible nowdays to just ‘plonk in a field’ like the good ol’ free festivals did, but with some planning it should be possible. I’m just worried that if I approached the council with the idea of a free festival they’d want too much security, insurance etc. rendering it almost impossible to put on a free festival.
there are parties in the se and everywhere all the time… all u need is some trees between u and them and a little distance and the sound just reflects. when i was at uni some hippies put on some organised party right opposite the uni campus in the woods and people were just like, ‘oh someones having a party,’ but they didnt realise the scale of it or how close it was. it was only cos a friend of mine were walking round the campus tripping that we noticed that the sound was getting significantly louder and quieter depending on where we were standing that we decided to take a walk to see (not expecting to find) and then after literally 3 mins walking we found it and u could actually see my bedroom of my halls from the party. people aren’t looking for that sort of thing, especially if they’ve never seen something like it before… i went out to some outdoor party a couple of weekends in essex and you walked out and onto a busy urban main road and u couldn’t hear anything music at all, the only indication was a load of wrecked people walking around.
so yeh trees and a small amount of distance… imo, dont speak to the council, concentrate your efforts on finding a good location and maybe one thats not been overused
@555 488865 wrote:
Yeah, im down in the SE, which seems to be a bit harder to pull off raves if this forum is anything to go by. Round where I am I’ve never seen or heard of a rave, and so im trying to get something of that nature started up.From what i’ve read with SE being ‘partied out’ I want to make sure the police are going to snap at the slightest noise..
Hmmm, I’m from SE i can assure you if you haven’t heard of a rave round here then you don’t know the right people 😉 I Personally think Hampshires police are the strictest in SE (heads up) There are some great country side locations in SE – you just gotta look :p Yeah as everyones said, (looking at the illegal side of things) it completley depends on your choice of venue. I’ve had partys that have been out in the middle of no where and no ones complained so even though the police knew about it (through knowing the partyline or people chatting on facebook ect) They came up showed that they know what we’re up to and left again with no problems because otherwise means us leaving without having time to tidy up ( so they have to) and potentially being still incapable of driving safely. It is not worth the use of resources to attempt to arrest people and seize equipment. (So usually- not always – if they get the helicopters out they’re planning to shut you down! Because this costs them a lot)Or theres been parties that are too close to local communities or are trespassing on land where the owner finds out and wants you off and the police will be much stricter and give you a section to leave the land by a certain time, and you must show that you activley finishing the party by turning the music off ect.. if you comply they’re usually nice about it, if not they will seize your equiptment (I’ve known things to go missing from rigs when they’ve been seized) And i think the maximum fine amount is 1000. Keep in mind – a gathering of more than 20 people is classed as anti social On the legal side of things i’d recomend renting out a club/pub you pay for having the venue, a late licence (opptional but reccomended) and usually they will have their own security. unless you want it outside then im not sure.Hope this was helpful 🙂
the SE is very densely populated and there are many different constabularies with slightly different policies and they can go from being “lenient” to “zero tolerance” in the space of weeks. so its not surprisingly someone living in one region does not find many raves but there are more across the border.
Hampshire and Surrey are often the harshest, this is because Hampshire is coastal which attracts people chancing it with big drug imports and and Surrey has a lot of wannabe gangsters who want to try their luck at drug dealing.
Thames Valley (I used to live in Reading) can be “lenient” but this is backed up by some intensive intelligence gathering and they can change from one week to the other. They get harsher on areas bordering the “eastern region” (bedfordshire etc) because of a large influx of ravers from zero tolerance areas in the East.
The maximum fine is up to £20 000 and courts can hand down sentences of imprisonment, in this region my friends went to prison because they were stubborn. it started out with all sides being “nice” but some folk took the piss.
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Forums › Rave › Free Parties & Teknivals › Organizing Free Parties and the law
