Hi Heafuk
shit how crap am I, asking for advise then not coming back to give feedback… in my defence the whole thing did drag on for fucking ages but it’s still crap.
anyway, end result was I had quite an interesting interview under caution with one of hte councils licensing officers which he’d obviously done a fair amount of research for as he was quoting legal precedents from early 90’s raves in manchester etc.
We argued the toss about the private party thing for a while, and both kinda agreed that it was subjective and could go either way if taken to court – think I argued my case fairly strongly too, and eventually we pretty much agreed to call it quits and I’d accept a caution plus a warning that if they even saw me at a warehouse party again they’d assume I’d done it and bust me for it. I was also under threat from the council that if I didn’t go for the caution they’d ensure I got no event work for any council funded events, which had already cost me 2-3k in work while it’d dragged on.
all pretty irrelevant now being as the licensing acts changed meaning there is virtually no private party defence anyway.
main bit that’s still relevant was the legal precedent that seems to show that you can be done as an organiser of an event even just as a DJ (I’d foolishly admitted I’d been playing to a copper being as I had a record bag on my back). They do need to demonstrate that you were ‘materially involved’ (think that’s the phrase), which as one dj in 12 might be difficult as the night could easily have gone on without you IMO.
we don’t do free parties anymore, just the occasional mass sandcastle building competition in the summers:groucho:
doing monthly clubnights anyway, and they’ve regenerated / knocked down most of our old warehouses so probably about time to move on anyway.
I’m doing a new free party guide for urban 75 being as the old one’s way out of date, will post it up for comments when I get it sorted.
thanks for the advice way back when… fs
http://www.freakydancing.net
