Background

In the early 1990s, the UK was electrified by an underground revolution — the free party scene. A coming together of tribes - travellers, city-living ravers, squatters, activists, artists and musicians, these illegal, open-air gatherings united cultures with a shared sound and purpose on common land, fields, warehouses and abandoned quarries across the country.

Powered by DIY rigs, pirate radio signals, and word-of-mouth, crews like Spiral Tribe, DiY, Circus Warp, and many, many more turned empty spaces into pulsing dancefloors. No tickets. No security. Just music, freedom, and community — often lasting days.

At the time we just wanted to party, but these weren’t just parties — the hedonism became resistance. Against commercial clubs. Against police crackdowns. Against the looming Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which targeted “repetitive beats” and small gatherings of people. Castlemorton in 1992 — with 25-40k attendees — became the final straw that ignited the bill.

This map is an archive of an era that could only have happened when it did. Every marker tells hundreds or thousands of stories and adventures: a convoy evading roadblocks, a generator humming under moonlight, a revelatory experience, a sunrise over a crowd in collective euphoria... Explore the map, step back in time and remember. As the nights got longer, the vibe got stronger.

Credits

The page was designed and made by BXL909. The map will almost certainly remain incomplete. Many of my own memories of the time are hazy and have blurred into one, often unable to distinguish one party from another. I was usually the driver, often with no clue where we'd end up. We didn't have GPS, mobile phones, etc, and we certainly didn't keep records of our exploits. All my press cuttings and flyers are sadly long gone, so I simply could not have made this without the incredible freepartypeople blog. I used it to compile dates and work out which sound systems were where. I've no wish to reproduce the great work that's already been done there - I strongly encourage clicking through to their entry for each party, because you'll find lots more information and often some photos, flyers, even video, and some of the discussion there is very entertaining too! Other than that, credit to everyone else who was there and made the scene all that it was.