Pawel isn’t the only person to have discussed these issues (they also cropped up in the various reports from Frenchtek from both mainstream and alternative places I have translated over the years).
there is a certain number of people in a group above which there are real security and safety risks. Europe is also not the optimistic social democratic continent it was barely a decade ago, as the economic depression bites deeper even the “cool” people get angrier. And of course English raves and festivals are not without their issues at all.
We might hate the “nanny state” for all the rules but I’ve been doing a lot of research into event licensing for about 5 years now and there do appear to be pragmatic reasons fro a lot of these licensing laws.
If you have a very friendly crowd most of which are from the same areas it is possible to have a mostly unregulated 1000-1500 person event (Reading warehouse parties at their peak were as big as that) but the safest events are those of 150-500 people as troublemakers do not have the “safety of crowds” and can be easily removed from these smaller events provided people are determined enough to stand up to them and oust them even if they are providing resources to the events or friends of frends..
However when you’ve got an angry scene/culture things can be worse, such as the 500 person Grime UK event in Colindale being shot up last week! There was a lot to be said for the “Norfolk” scene being a bit cheesy and fluffy, that was perhaps why it lasted so many years!
