Forums › Rave › Free Parties & Teknivals › Houghton Woods Rave
Hi, I’ve never posted on your forum before, and I’m sure that you won’t let me do it again, but I wanted to give you all some feeedback from the Whiteways / Houghton forest rave over the bank holiday. I live about 5 miles from the site you chose, and it was impossible to sleep. I drove up there to see what was going on and was told that I wasn’t welcome and that I should leave or be forced to. I went back up there again once the ravers had all gone and the place was a state – broken glass, rubbish, human excrement, bottles, cans old blankets, burn marks etc. I am a young person, but I don’t think that what you are doing is right, though I doubt this will stop you.
That bloody awful music blared out ALL NIGHT. The place was trashed, and I know for a fact that you were on private property without permission. I would have liked to see the police come and stop that rave, but for some reason they didnt. I hope if you come back they do the lot of you for making too much noice, trespass, littering, check the roadworthynes of your crusty old busses, posession of canabis (the place stank) and whatever else drugs you all use. Next time I will make sure that gate stays locked and keep you lot out of the woods that are not yours. Get back to the cities and use an old warehouse, but stop coming out into the countryside and messing it up. You are not welcome.
well, firstly, thank you for comin here and giving us a fresh perspective on these events. i, for one, genuinely appreciate it. this site is all about helping the freeparty scene, and finding ways of doing things better.
i put on freeparties, and spend hours finding and investigating potential sites that are as far away from people as possible. our crew also has health and safety trained people, fire crew, free drinking water and a militant attitude to tidying up our sites. the only thing we leave is footprints and charred fire-marks. unfortunately i would say we’re in the minority, and there are crews that will just turn up anywhere and party. i’m not sayin that descibes the crew near you, they may have been swamped by numbers they didnt expect. either way, i hope they come here to defend themselves.
i am well suprised that you say you were turned away from the party…were you aggressive or abusive to the ravers? i cannot imagine how somewone can get turned away from a rave. surely there are a million entrances/ exits? i’m not a big fan of partying private land with no permish either…who owns the land that got mashed?
unfortunatly for you, there is no way the pigs can shut down a big rave once its started. they need two coppers for every raver, so getting 1000 coppers is impossible. you have to catch the rigs setting up when there are hardly any people there, but you will only do that thru disproprtionate effort (prowling the countryside, vigelante style) or total fluke.
it doesnt seem like you made a huge effort to understand what was going on, and if you will refer to your calender, you will see that was the mayday weekend, where people have been going to the woods to party since before history began. i am sorry that the crew was inconsiderate and ignorant, but you should not let that one incident colour your whole perception of raves and freeparties. realise that you can and will never stop us, the only thing you can do to get a better nights sleep is help us. help us find better locations, and try and understand that what we are doing is about freedom and community and fun and freindship,not solely designed to keep you up at night.
next time you hear the bass, get your ravin shoes on and neck some acid?
hope that was helpful i look forward to hearing your reply.
PS: you would have to do something horrific to get chucked off this site, we are all about tolerence..
hi, cheers for bothering to reply. I think I might have got a bit hacked off in my first post. Apologies, but a lack of sleep will do that to you.
I admit to not really understanding your perspective, but equally you can see how I / we dislike loads of people turning up, getting mashed and trashing the place. I understand that it wasn’t you that did it, and that your parties are better organised than this one – but that doesnt make it any better for me and all the other people who were kept up all night for 2 nights on the run.
There is a steel gate into the woods that were used, and it appears to have been damaged to gain access. The woods are privately owned, partly by the forestry commission and partly by the Norfolk estate. I wasn’t going to get any further onto the place to see exactly what was going on or where the sound system was.
I didnt even speak to anyone there, but I think the land rover / lack of dreadlocks might have given away that I wasn’t one of them. The bloke I talked to did seem a little worse for wear, so maybe wasn’t indicative of the whole lot of people who were there, but it wasnt pleasant either way. I wasn’t chucked off, I left when the bloke suggested it might be a good idea.
I understand that there’s no way to stop it, but I still don’t think it’s right to do that. If I came over with all my mates, knocked your gate down and had a party in your garden all weekend and left a big mess I dare say you’d be pretty hacked off about it too. I supose that if you have permission then it’s fair enough – its just the noise issue you have to deal with, but this pissed me and a whole load of other people in an 8 mile radius right off. You’re on top of a hill there, and it can be heard for miles – literally.
I suppose that if you must break the law and do this, take drugs or whatever you do just please use urban sites, the countryside isnt the place for this type of thing.
WM
“I didnt even speak to anyone there, but I think the land rover…” should read “I didnt antagonise anyone there” – the guy came over to me I didnt start on him. I tried to edit the post but it wont let me.
wm
i hate it when people don’t look after a nice spot…wonder which crew it was?
urban locations aren’t always available, and in fairness, a lot of people consider Beltaine an important time to be outdoors and to celebrate life
obviously I can’t speak for the people you’re talking about, but when a couple of police arrived at the party I was attending this weekend, the main organiser gave them his mobile number and asked them to ring him if there were any complaints or problems. This saved them a lot of time, effort and MONEY as the uniforms were needed much more urgently in nearby towns to deal with large numbers of drunk and disorderly (even violent) people who had been causing problems in urban areas
that’s another reason why some people make every effort to get away from towns… they want to party (noisily) in peace.
you might not appreciate the disruption and damage, but consider yourself lucky you don’t live near a street full of ‘fun pubs’
on the contrary the countryside is the best place for these things.. in cities there are too many things to go wrong – plus, beleive it or not, these ravers actually do appreciate nature, its just our education system is so shite that a lot of people dont know basic countryside ettiquete. plus, as you will be aware, there are more people living in cities and they will be disturbed more than you if those areas are partied.
i have spoken to some of the organisers of that party breifly, and i was actually gonna come up with my projector, but couldnt get a lift. i have to say i know one of the crews is less than ecologically minded, which is wrong.
i think your attitude to the party is a little narrow minded. when i went to the opera last year, i thought it was full of snobby, jumped up little shits, but that didnt makle me run away, i took their nasty looks on the chin and went in to find out what the fuss was about.
i think that if you ever come across another rave (which i sincerly hope isnt for a while), put on some casual working clothes and just go down for an hour. i assure you, not everyone is on drugs, not everyone has dreadlocks, at some of the parties i’ve put on, there have been 40- yr old teachers from the local secondary, off duty firemen, a random group of old women that came after the pub, and all manner of walks of life in between.
in order to understand a bit better what we’re doing, take the time to realise that the organisers are putting on freeevents for the public and cost to themselves, in time effort and capital, to continue the great british tradition of heading for the woods and partying, especially on old pagan feast days like beltane.
Thats what really p***s me off about the rave scene, its supposed to be all about the music and the love. Some people just have to ruin it for everyone. Mostly not intentionally (the last rave I went to I doubt the dickheads smashing windows were thinking “this is great, now we never get to use this place again”), but just through thoughtlessness. The illegality of the scene also attacts that dodgy element, just out for what they can get.
I’m sure that nothing I can say will change your opinion much right now, but most of the people who go to these events are essentially good. Clean up after themselves etc. We need to work together to make it harder for the stupid minority.
I do have to disagree about keeping these events urban-only. I agree that (from your description) the choice of location for this rave was a bad one, but in a city having noise travel only 1/2 mile can disturb many more people. A location for a rave needs to take into consideration the people nearby, an outdoor rave should strive to be in a valley/quary etc as far from “civilisation” as possible.
Next time this happens, just go talk to somebody at a rig. You are much more likely to get sense out of somebody who organised the rave that a random on the outskirts. I’m sure the organisers will listen to what you have to say and try to improve things, and if they don’t, call the cops – they deserve it.
Thanks for posting Woodsman. Although this site doesn’t speak for everyone, it welcomes debate and comments from all sides so yours is well placed. What’s more although we advocate these kinds of events because we feel they represent cultural outlets which aren’t being met by society, we encourage holding them in a repectful manner although it unfortunately often doesn’t happen for many reasons (including society’s intolerance). Regardless our freedom to party certainly shouldn’t come at other people’s expense!
you can’t edit your posts if you aren’t registered / logged in
i wasn’t there so i don’t know. and the party wasn’t mentioned on here before or afterwards, so it’s unlikely that the organisers use this forum… although someone who attended might have done?
the person you spoke to / spoke to you… could have been anyone; don’t judge everyone who goes to free parties based on one person… imagine basing your view of all British people based on meeting one sunburnt, lager-swilling Brit abroad that you met in the Costa Del Sol, for example
just a suggestion, but seeing as you went to the trouble of finding the place…
next time (?) you could approach the sound speakers and ask someone (one of the DJ’s for example) if you can speak to one of the organisers. explain to them that the noise is upsetting you. some organisers might laugh at you, many will be happy to find a compromise. You might even enjoy it :omg:
Globalloon makes an important point here, everyone should be welcome at a genuinely free party including locals and the police (so long as they respect our rights of course!)…
Cheers for your posts. To be honest I had thought I’d get a load of grief off you for even posting, but I got fed up with being put on hold by the environment agencys noise line so I came to find out who it was. I know the police were called, and that our local copper went up there, but like you say – there are 500 people in a wood off thier heads so he can’t do anything. If you do speak to the people that organised that please pass on my thoughts. Not that it will do a lot, but I think a bit of constructive critisism is always useful.
Although everyone has a right to enjoy themselves, it shouldnt be at someone else’s expense, or in this case a few hundred peoples expense. You can’t just go breaking into places to have a party. It’s just not on. Like I said, if I came round to your house with my mates, broke into your garden and had a big old piss up with some music blaring out I think you would probably have something to say? This is just the same, but better organised and with so many people the Police are not able to deal with it.
I can see why you choose the countryside, and that is a half sensible idea. The thing that really f*cked me and everyone else off was the noise, as most people don’t use those woods (they are private like I said) so they wont see the damage. I don’t think we are ever going to see eye to eye on this, as we are clearly different, but if you lot choose your venues a bit better so that you don’t keep everyone in an 8 mile raduis up for 2 days I’m sure you’ll find people a bit more tolerant.
WM
Woodsman – although you understandably did not like the rave (and TBH I agree with you that it was perhaps not in an appropriate location) I am pleased that you had the courage and integrity to engage in dialogue with the people on this board – others who are anti-rave often just post snide anonymous comments, or pass info to the Police from here (which is a pointless exercise as the cops already read the stuff here anyway).
I have been raving for 14 years, both in licensed and free events, but if you look at other posts I have also been very critical of those who do not respect the environment, who cause damage to urban venues or the rural environment or who cause too much disruption for too long.
You will also see other posts here highly supportive of a young people’s environmental group, as well as discussions on wildlife and nature.
I live quite near rural areas and I am aware of events that have happened just a few miles from my house, but the venue was chosen and sound equipment was deployed in such a manner that locals just could not hear it!
I only knew about the event because a friend told me, and on doing so I rode up to this event on my well-maintained, non-polluting and 100% British built bicycle (on which I also paid the appropriate VAT) and was greeted by a welcoming crowd (and I do not have dreadlocks!)
I know full well there are so called “ravers” who do not respect the environment as they should or who are hostile to locals (on their own patch), and quite frankly they are not welcome on our scene – it is however hard to prevent some of them attending, in the same way that pub landlords and club owners have this problem. That said the level of trouble is actually far less than at even a village pub, and I am shocked to hear you were threatened by someone from this party. Had that idiot who threatened you been present at other parties in my area; he would have been warned off or even ejected; there is no excuse for his behaviour.
As for the legal aspect, one problem is the law relating to “freedom of assembly” is not applied fairly or effectively.
Heres a personal example – in my city there is a long-running pop festival. It causes considerable disruption to the city such as traffic congestion and litter, and has been blighted by violence since it ever started in the 1970s, including a police officer being shot dead by a drug dealer. The number of people who attend is equivalent to doubling the areas population and puts considerable strain on the local infrastructure.
There have been rapes, organised fights, stabbings, muggings, fires, bomb scares, a young girl having the contents of a chemical toilet being tipped over her and for days afterwards the surrounding area is full of all sorts of trash.
The noise can often be heard 3-4 miles away – yet this festival is allowed to continue because it is organised on a commercial basis and has high ticket prices which “compensate for the disruption” – yet the costs of clearing up are still picked up by the local council tax payers – of which I am one!
The promoters themselves have been accused of employing security staff with criminal records who are often violent – yet this event doesn’t get closed down (or even moved to a more appropriate area outside the main part of the city) because the council can get licensing fees from it.
Although I appreciate that people may have a commercial right to have private land if they have bought it on the free market – it does seem that half the countryside is blocked off and there is a rather insular mentality amongst some in rural areas.
If any of the ravers I know could afford a garden the size of that forest people wouldn’t have to break in to have a party; they would have been welcome to set up there – and you would be welcome too to join them for a beer or two if you so wished, although I would hope you did not drive the land rover until you were sober again!
If people could do this stuff legally without fear of being moved on at short notice they would invest more in infrastructure such as portable toilets / latrines and other facilities to prevent environmental damage….
and even with the unlicensed events I’ve seen crews clear up not only their own rubbish but other stuff that was flytipped – in front of a Forestry Commission officer who congratulated them for doing so.
The paradox is even if ravers pooled their financial resources together and bought such a place the law in its present form would not allow them to have a rave there without going through a complex and expensive licensing procedure, even if no disruption was being caused…
furthermore many of those who organise these raves have previously tried to do things legally but have been thwarted by a combination of narrow-mindedness and nimbyism which has led to many licensed venues being shut down
But in my area commercial festival organisations are causing problems to my area at my expense – at least the ravers are just holding these events for people’s enjoyment rather than a profit motive.
OTOH I fully agree with you though that disruption to others should not happen and venues should be better chosen – and your discussion will at least reach thousands of people who do go raving or organise such events and may well make them think about the wider issues.
Hi Woodsman.
Thanks for posting in a civilised manner even though you are understandebly hacked off.
Firstly I’d like to say that you should never have been treated with hostility. Provided you weren’t aggresive yourself then you should have been met with an open mind/ear. Almost all parties I go to, organisers deal with concerned individuals in a grown up manner and will listen and come to some sort of reasonable compromise.
Maybe you didn’t speak to an organiser. Regardless though, you should not have been treated as you did provided you were acting in a rational manner.
Secondly, party organisers should always make an effort beforehand to recon the area to make sure nobody is going to be disturbed by the party. Sadly sometimes (like your case) this either isn’t done at all or someone has made a mistake. The last thing we want to do is piss people off and bring any more hostility towards our activities.
Sometimes upseting people can’t be helped. But this should always be kept to a minimum. Eg, large amounts of people should not be kept awake and there should be no damage to property apart from dusty dance areas and at the worst a broken padlock (which I’d like to say, we tend to supply the owner with a new padlock with keys taped to it)
I think I can speak for most ravers/party goers that we like to leave the land the way we found it and our intention is never to wreck the beautiful countryside. The beautiful surroundings are what attracts the outdoor country parties anyway, as well as the desire to stay as far away from built up areas as possible so we can minimise disruption.
Another thing that might be worth noting is that despite what the generel view of parties are, we don’t all do it to get wrecked and off our heads. It’s been said already that it’s about freedom and friendship in a non restrictive fun killing atmosphere. I personally do not take drugs at parties and haven’t done for 4 or 5 years. I know plenty of other people who don’t either. Yes, drugs do go hand in hand with the party scene but you’ll find they aren’t the be all and end all.
Sorry for your experience but I hope this hasn’t forged your opinion of us in stone as you will find the majority of us are a pretty approachable bunch who have no intention of upseting people.
P.S You don’t have to have dredlocks to be a part. People from all walks of life enjoy the parties. 🙂
Oh and another thing. In an ideal world we’d all like to work WITH the police, forestry commision, land owners etc to choose ideal places and ensure safety etc….. but i’m sure you see the reason why this will sadly never be?
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Forums › Rave › Free Parties & Teknivals › Houghton Woods Rave
