After Mad Hatter's when I paid $30 cash (and received no receipt) and the party was shut down *five minutes* after I arrived and later received no reimbursement, I decided to get to the larger, more expensive raves earlier. Good thing that I arrived at around 10:30 p.m. to "Pop" so that I had about three hours to enjoy myself and, in the end, I did feel like I got my money's worth. I thought it kicked ass that we were partying on an ice rink, I liked all the visuals, and playing the song “pop your cork” as the year turned to ’07 was tight.
But I got to bitch some and say what the hell does "fully permitted" mean anymore when all of these so-called permitted events get shut down early? I started to get a bit worried about "Pop" when I went to buy my tickets for it at the Skills shop and there they would only accept cash for my purchase, because they were worried that the rave really wasn't permitted. If the store that sells tickets (and knows far more about the rave scene than I do) doesn't trust the advertising on the flyer, why should I?
I actually got a good piece of advice from the person I bought the ticket from at Skills. He told me that if an event is "all ages," no matter what is said on the flyer, most likely the event is not truly permitted. My rule of thumb now is that if an event is big and I am forced to buy the tickets in cash when I go to the presale location, the event probably isn't permitted.
No offense, but is it really that hard to make sure these events go off without being shut down? One approaches the authorities ahead of time and says, "Look, we want to hold this party, we expect to generate this much noise, we expect this many people to show up, these are the hours we want to hold it, and this is what we're selling (e.g. alcohol or no alcohol). What do we have to do so that you won't bust us?"
I also don't really buy the excuse that the "person who rented out the venue to us told us such and such..." No matter what the person who rents out the venue (who is just trying to make a buck, after all) says, one must confirm that things are legit with the fire department, police, and so on.
I do blame the cops somewhat because most people at these sorts of things are just trying to have a good time and we sure aren't criminals out on the streets out to rob/hurt/rape people. On the other hand, I do think that some of these events have so many people crammed into one space/not enough exits/etc. that a serious fire hazard is posed and some people seem like they need to be saved from themselves in terms of popping pills (witness the girl, not to single anyone out, who seemed to have ODed yesterday at "Pop") and other hazards. All sorts of people would get on the cops' asses if it hit the news that someone died at a party that they knew was unregulated and they let continue. And are the proper regulations that hard to follow? So maybe I blame the authorities 10 to 25%, and the organizers the rest.
I personally like going to underground events (and taking the risk that the party will be shut down), but I don't like being lied to that an event is permitted when it isn't, and I don't like paying a bunch of money for something thinking that the party definitely will go off when it doesn't or only partly goes off.
So here's a suggestion: that if an event claims to be "fully permitted" we can pay for it by credit card and if it gets shut down we get reimbursed based on how early the event got shut down. So let's say that an event is supposed to go from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. and it gets shut down at 2 a.m., we get 50% of our money back, if it gets shut down at 1 a.m., we get 75% of our money back, and if it gets shut down at 12 a.m. or earlier, we get an entire refund. I just made up these numbers as an example, but I think that the general idea should be adopted. Otherwise, these events should not bill themselves as fully permitted, they should charge less, and I should clearly know that I'm taking my chances. Perhaps there should be some sort of middle category like simply "permitted" where I know that the event is not completely underground and unregulated, but that the party still may get shut down.
Until some reform takes place, my preference will be for the smaller, more underground events that are about half as expensive and (at least according to my personal experience raving thus far) less likely to get shut down.
Peace out.
