hello everyone – I’m normally on the main bit but have been reading the threads on manchester partiies with some interest – I’ve never actually been to Manchester! Sad to hear though that scallies picked up on these parties so quickly and caused trouble…
theres unfortunately always an element of angry fucked up people in big cities – violence is routine at London free parties and even in provincial areas the vandalism got to a point where the cops just busted half of our crews with riot police and confiscated the rigs, now everyone is up before court for the harsher penalty of entertainment wihout a license and destruction orders have been put on the rigs, it just seems this is being done as a reprisal because of the damage to the buildings.
the venues in manchester are obviously a good building so its sad when this happens; but its a problem you have to deal with right away. Down south and particularly in London people ignored the problems for too long as “it was only a minority” and now they have got to the stage where most indoor free parties in London have security and even then there is still trouble
the problem with big buildings is unless you have peopel who are prepared to squat the building and actually live in it (so that you know the building in side out) they are very hard to keep people safe in, either from scallies or physical hazards. And TBH it would be a VERY brave person who stays several nights in somewhere like a disused mental asylum or any medical type facility, particularly with the dark things that happen there (there’s a good story I have about this which I will post to the main board one day).
the problem is as soon as a city venue gets known scallies (or chavs/townies as we call them down south) often look for prey. you either need to keep moving to be one step ahead, or if possible choose outdoor venues (I’m sure you do get summer even north of Watford :D) , but even then you need to be on your guard.
but don’t let the vandalism and trouble get out of hand or the dibble will get more on your case, particularly when the casualties start presenting to the local Emergency Department in drugged up states and the paramedics get paranoid…
interested to know (as I have never been to a Northern rave) how GMP dealt with the rave – did they nick the scallies and let you carry on, or just shut the rave down, or do fuck all?
