not seen the kind of idealistic TAZ type squat Pike Tom Us mentions for nearly a decade. Folk in my current area who would have done such things no longer consider cracking squats as chavs will trash the place or nastier dealers try to take it over and it would backfire on the other community ventures they are involved in, as many depend on having the goodwill of the public sector and taxpayers.
Most of them don’t take drugs or stay up that late anyway..
Sam has a point, considering his relatively young age and the genres of music he likes.
Modern London squat parties need security because of the culture of vandalism and robbery these days. Security don’t work for free, hence the door tax and most of the door money (which can cost as much if not more than some licensed events) is swallowed up in security costs.
For licensed events at least the promoters and musicians are getting a bit more as the security costs are normally spread out across all the events which happen at the venue including commercial dance events, which subsidise the more underground ones by alcohol sales. Its no longer that easy to launder drugs money through licensed night time venues like it was in the 90s, cops now watch out for stuff like that.
I also get the impression that many party crews put on events in licensed venues to subsidise the cost of doing unlicensed parties which they often lose out on, especially if a rig is confiscated. This is (or was) definitely the case in the provincial/rural areas.
The real elephant in the room is that there is much less money and resources now going round the electronic dance music scene and in areas where there aren’t regular events or available (legal or otherwise), good people are dropping out left right and centre as they can’t afford the time or money to put on parties, or they have other priorities in life. Parties were “better” 10 years ago not because of music trends but because there was fuckloads of spare resources, cash and money and slack time due to the economy being in a better state, and people still being more willing to pay for musical content in the form of vinyl records.
