@haciendacasualty 557981 wrote:
Terrrible sterile enviroment, excellent psy and visuals, too many nobs, students being taken away by paramedics in straight jackets, people up their own arse thinkin its “underground” its in the students union for fucks sake!!! get a grip! illuminaughty is now sadly a ” brand ” oh and the security is a bit full on byebye illuminaughty sold out
I don’t think anyone today can claim any form of EDM is “underground”, not like 25 years ago and even then both in London and Manchester it was linked to the mainstream music industry and folk were trying also to get jobs on “yoof TV” etc. At least up North they are still allowed to have these events in Student Union premises, in my current town they built a new University but flat out refused to have any sort of faster dance music in the Student Union venue because of “concerns to student health/welfare from drug use”. The venue closed for a bit due to lack of business and has reopened but only as a café/bar and concentrating on guitar based events.
As for people only being there because its “fashionable” and/or acting like idiots, that infests all music events these days and can’t be blamed on the promoters. There was an acid techno event in London recently that a fair few people from here went to, it was musically very good but all the girls there reported a level of sexual harrasment that would have been unheard of at a specialist music event in the 90s or early 2000s.
I suspect you are about my age (given your screenname) – it was only for a short time in the late 80s/90s that we were very lucky to grow up in that these events were seen as something new and special where people of all backgrounds intermingled and behaved well to each other and were completely different from all other kinds of nightlife. Some younger friends of mine used to put on events here it only took a few idiots to wreck the atmosphere by fighting/nicking stuff/overdoing the drugs and eventually they couldn’t be bothered with the effort of finding and keeping a licensed venue but found if they did illegal events they would eventually be caught – two of them even got prison time just for raves, others went down because it was blatantly obvious they were dealing
Promoters are often not allowed to choose their own security firm directly, and must use one approved by the Council, the freeholders of the venue and the Police. It may end up being the same one the promoters might have picked anyway, but these firms are increasingly full of “rentaguard” types doing overtime rather than those who are experienced at dance events and know what to stop and what to turn a blind eye to, as there isn’t enough music event work for them to make a living and taking a cut of dealers profits in return for “safe passage” is viewed as corruption/money laundering and anyone caught for it would lose their SIA card as well as being nicked and/or deported if they aren’t UK born. That said, most of the event security folk in my town are decent enough people, though when an event has lots of youngsters they treat everyone coming in like they are 16.
Promoters also have personal liability for any risks/financial losses to the venue owners unless they set up a limited company to do so, and even then you are not going to make a living out of music event management in the UK. its a lot of work, more stressful than a normal day job (I’ve turned down several opportunities to work with various event crews for this reason) although the skills learned are transferable to corporate type events. So in todays climate I can understand if those involved want to make a “brand” out of their crew and/or protect their reputation.
Even if a few punters were keeling over (perhaps due to combining RC’s or those dodgy PMA pills), its small potatoes compared to how many other folk are bluelighted every weekend in the Manchester area through overdoing it or get assaulted in/around mainstream venues. Given that there have been fatalities in Manchester at other venues I’m not surprised the paramedics and security have been told to step things up a bit, and one reaction of some of the bad pills/RC’s is irrational aggression hence the use of restraint techniques against the patient.
BTW Manchester Royal Infirmary is a teaching hospital so at least those students are still contributing to education of others, and they can train the relatively inexperienced young paramedics on a otherwise fit and healthy patient than a frail old person who has suddenly taken ill (where any mistakes are more likely to be fatal). Its way better than what has happened in the South (especially outside London) where they just refuse to license events.
