Thats a bit unfair as if they’d put any effort in they would know that this is one of the safest party sites. You know anything else about the story???
my mum saw it and mentioned it to me! – AFAIK partyvibe was only mentioned in passing. I had noticed various TV companies looking at our site in the logs for some months now.
BTW the rave was shot up by irate gamekeepers who had a financial interest in the land where the event was being held, not by any wannabe gangsta types present at the rave (I have never heard in 14 years of a firearm being discharged at a real free party, although it is commonplace at unlicensed UK garage parties).
they were given a prison sentence and had their firearms confiscated, but the short length of the sentence leaves a danger that another irate landowner who feels “they have nothing else left to lose” may try to take matters into their own hands in a similar way.
as far as the report is concerned I wouldn’t class it as unfair journalism, just your average report – although the shooter was given a platform to speak from in that report (where she alleged overuse of that particular venue and an amount of environmental damage) she had already been through due legal process and had done her prison time, she is hardly going to repent now!
The event happened, it could happen again, and it is an illustration of how angry and divided people are becoming over the issues of access to rural land – hardly suprising the media pick up on it.
Partyvibe is a site people look on for info about both free and licensed events (including licensed urban music events promoted by the BBC 1xtra channel!), and has a liberal attitude towards organising free private events outside the constraints of the British entertainments licensing system.
But users of this site openly discuss issues such as this incident, and warn anyone attending these of the safety and legal issues involved and have done so for many years.
TBH its about £5,000 worth of free publicity to hundreds of thousands of TV viewers, and I bet if the journos had consulted with the cops beforehand they would have actually told them not to publicise our site!
We are after all a site on the public internet, accessible to all citizens of the world who have a free net connection.
Sites such as this (and SJ, USH, psy-forum, dnbforum) represent the free party and urban music scene to the rest of the world (including those who may not approve of our activities) as much as supportive ravers.
And in common with all websites we are constantly subject to the scrutiny of the media – these reports will happen (its not the first time PV has been mentioned in the local media.)
This is something all our users should also remember when posting here.
