this is what happens when bumpkin cops read metpol guidance notes and follow them to the letter – they are told to treat every rave, including legal ones, as a source of potential gun/gang crime – thanks to the UKG lot and scumjuice and bebo bigging up dysfunctional behaviour online…

if they see the terms “dubstep”, “grime” or “garage” they are told to expect gangsters. If they see the terms “hardcore”, “hardstyle” etc they are told to expect drugs to be rife.

its why I never plug the * legal events on here, because every time I did the cops personally visited them and accused them of putting on a event as a front for squat parties, and they would also discourage the venue managers from hiring the places again..

how were you approached? in person or did the cops use any form of electronic communication?

A telephone call, or bobbies actually turning up on the doorstep?

The initiall tip off may not even by D & C, could have been Wiltshire or Avsom as they tend to share intelligence in groups

I suspect they are worried about numbers because they can tell from here, SJ and Bebo that Eastern constabularies have been very successful in downsizing both the unlicensed and even legal events in their force areas,

However easy access to vehicles and fuel costs still not biting too hard (ket sales are a nice earner) means that many “Norfolk” ravers can still afford to travel 150-200 or so miles to the West or SW for parties, hence increasing the numbers

then add to that the current paranoia over “postcode/regional gang wars” (especially given the threads on some forums dissing each others regions)

another thought – you’ve been stirring things with the “Waveform” lot, could it be possible they also called the cops or passed on info? its a bit rum as I’ve only seen cops do this before once in all the time I have been on here (Wiltshire, and it was a illegal event) and your area was supposedly more tolerant..

they definitely must have SE / Eastern forces encouraging this as this is identical to the Essex/Suffolk approach

its a real shame as I would say 90% of our users are clued up, responsible ravers but we invariably get lumped in with all the other forums/social networks and cops form their opinions of ravers from all of these sources..

That’s a fukin joke Dan.. good luck with fighting it…. :group_hug

:hopeless:

:you_crazy

Sorry to hear that Glo :group_hug

whats SWOT mean?

I guess in my short time here, you’ve not been able to openly discuss free / illegal partys – so I’m used to it I guess more than you guys who’ve been here since the start?

I really think it’d be a good insight for some of the subscribers to be able to view this thread, and so they can be aware of the ‘dangers’ of even talking about legal events on here….

we (as mods) have been very security aware right from the start and removed obvious bait things quickly –

“free speech” is both a strength and a weakness…I doubt removing terms like free party/rave etc would make the slightest bit of difference and make the cops disappear – they are here to stay.

there are IMO two levels of surveillance.

The first is the obvious one where they will act on descriptions of actual planned crimes or potential crime

The second is the image cops get of the rave scene through monitoring all forums. Most of them lump together PV, SJ, DSI, Bebo and Facebook as a lot of people use all of these sites.

Although our drugs advice is usually good, and we don’t allow anything like the amount of “fuck the babylon” or the sex-obsessed rubbish to be found elsewhere, we do have a fair few unrepentant older drug addicts chatting about opiates on the forums (at one point it looked like a heroin rehab). All of them were aged 24-40 and at one point “old skool ravers”. All of them moved to opiates because they became bored of party drugs.

We also have a lot of younger K users bemoaning the physical and mental health issues that are being casued.

There have been at least two posts from younger women in their mid 20s wanting to defeat drugs tests. I assume from the context of their posts and profiles they have been told to stay clean in order to keep access to their children, but have not been able to exhibit sufficient self-control to do so.

Now everyone is exercising their free speech and not exactly telling lies – but who can blame cops / NHS / social services for viewing this as proof that electronic dance music events are a potential gateway to class A drug use. do we have the right to try and “bury this bad news”?

IMO it should be told and we should deal with the consequences.

I do feel a bit sorry for the younger generation but they are repeating the same mistakes. 3 people I know have got addicted to H/crack and I’ve only known them for about 2 years. The more intelligent youths in my area are simply walking away and going college/uni instead (not that there’s anything bad in this!)

at the moment its more a museum of rave from the late 90s to early 2000s – but its only become so by peoples own actions in the wider community.

there are people trying to do TENS events here but are coming across the same issues you are.

the big elephant in the room is drugs – here in Eastern England virtually every family with younger children has had at least one kid or young relative affected by problematic drug use, and most link it with the rave scene.

I was telling people in SE and Eastern England about the risks of environmental damage and excessive drug use 6 or so years ago – people ignored it and even went off to other forums as they “didn’t have so much bad news”

I find sites like that fairly incomprehensible to newcomers and contains the usual ego-tripping found in a techie dominated environment (bear in mind this comment is coming from an engineer with 20 years tech experience!)

however our community (particularly Olly and the Scots) are good at explaining this to those who aren’t already techies which is what we need to do.