On the night of 24 June 1989, thousands of people gathered at White Waltham Airfield near Maidenhead for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the orbital M25 raves run by Tony Colston-Hayter’s Sunrise company. Nobody had been told the location in advance. They found it by calling a hotline number.
Five years later, the Criminal Justice Act 1994 tried to criminalise music characterised by “a succession of repetitive beats.” By then the parties had already changed the country. Acid house had produced a generation of DJs, an outdoor festival infrastructure, a legal club circuit and four distinct genre branches, and the playbook Sunrise wrote still runs every party that happens outside the clubs, in Seoul included.
한국어 요약
레이브 시대, 1988년부터 1994년까지
오비탈 레이브는 영국 M25 순환 고속도로 주변의 바뀌는 장소에서 열린 대규모 야외 파티로, 토니 콜스턴헤이터의 Sunrise가 이끌었습니다. 참가자들은 행사 몇 시간 전에 핫라인에 전화해 장소를 알아냈습니다.
1994년 형사사법법은 반복적인 비트가 특징인 야외 음악에 대한 경찰 권한으로 대응했습니다. Sunrise가 만든 방식은 지금도 서울의 클럽 밖 파티에서 이어지고 있으며, 2024년 7월 성수 에스팩토리의 Boiler Room처럼 공간에 비해 너무 많은 인원은 여전히 위험합니다.
잘못된 정보나 날짜가 있다면 알려 주세요.
The Haçienda Opened the Door
The Haçienda in Manchester, opened in 1982, was the precursor to the rave era. The venue was funded by Factory Records and New Order.
In 1987 and 1988, the Haçienda became the place where British audiences first met Chicago house in real numbers. Residents such as Mike Pickering and Graeme Park played the imported Chicago records that defined those nights. Park had been playing imported house while working at the Select-a-Disc record shop in Nottingham before he joined Pickering in 1987. The records arrived through shops and residents first; the fields came after.
Sunrise Wrote the Playbook
Sunrise pioneered the orbital rave model. Instead of one fixed venue, it put on huge outdoor events at changing sites around the M25, the motorway that rings Greater London. Events were announced through hotline phone numbers: you called hours before and got the location.
The Midsummer Night’s Dream in June 1989 drew thousands, and its organiser only avoided prosecution by arguing it had been a private members’ party, the membership card defence Sunrise used after White Waltham. The outdoor raves showed that young people could organise huge events with no institutional support and no licence. Beyond a genre and a drug culture, that sense of agency is what the era left behind.
The Law Tried to Define a Culture by Its Drums
By 1991 and 1992 the legal club circuit was growing fast. Ministry of Sound opened in September 1991, designed from the start as a superclub. Then came the Criminal Justice Act of 1994. Section 63 gave police powers to break up open air gatherings of 100 or more people playing “music including sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” The Act was fiercely controversial.
The Criminal Justice Act tried to define a culture out of existence by describing its drum patterns, and the culture changed rooms. A law aimed at a sound pushed the sound indoors, into the licensed clubs that were already waiting for it. That lesson rhymes uncomfortably with Korea’s own licensing tangles.
What It Looked Like From Western Canada
I grew up in western Canada during these years, a long way from any M25 field. The music reached me through MuchMusic, and especially Electric Circus, its live dance show out of Toronto. It also arrived in an unexpected way. British soldiers were training nearby, at the base at Suffield, and they gave me music and CDs, or I bought the ones they had sold to the local record shops.
Parties were word of mouth, or flyers handed out and left at coffee shops, record stores and the front doors of a few clothing stores. Chris Sheppard out of Toronto was probably the first national DJ, with a radio show and mix CDs like his Pirate Radio Sessions series. MC Mario out of Montreal was another, poppier and more club house.
The sound was a welcome blend of acid, bass lines, vocal hooks, divas and catchy beats. Sometimes experimental, like The Prodigy’s “Charly,” sometimes slightly industrial, sometimes simply upbeat. The flyer in the record store was our hotline. Massive Attack were amazing in the nineties too, though most people now know them only through “Teardrop,” the theme song to House.
The Sunrise Playbook Still Runs in Seoul
I bring this era up constantly. Every unlicensed warehouse party since, including the Korean events that run outside the club system today, runs the Sunrise playbook: a location revealed late, a crowd that finds its way, an authority a step behind. The tools changed from phone hotlines to encrypted group chats. The choreography didn’t.
The Rave Playbook, 1989 and 2026
How the parties were found, where they happened and how the law caught up
레이브의 공식, 1989년과 2026년
| Step | Orbital raves, 1989 to 94 | Korea, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Finding it | A hotline, hours before | Encrypted group chats |
| The site | Fields around the M25 | A campsite in Anseong |
| The night | Thousands, one airfield | Twenty hours plus, one stage |
| The law | Section 63: 100 or more people | Draft safety rules under 1,000 |
The differenceIn 1989 the law chased the parties. In Korea in 2026 the safety rules are arriving first.
The outdoor side has its clearest Korean echo in the camping festival. TOR Festival made its debut on 29 and 30 August 2026 at Geumgwang Campsite in Anseong (안성), a single stage techno event running past twenty hours, with Marcus L, Siot and Stann Lumo on the lineup. Marcus L founded Faust in Itaewon in 2014, so the line from a Seoul club to a field is short and direct. It’s the orbital model with a tent and a permit: a crowd that travels out of the city, a long night, one sound system.
For a DJ, the field changes the job. Sound travels, wind moves the high end around, and a set at 7am in a campsite needs a different arc from a basement at 2am. The Korean festival calendar now runs from Seoul Land (서울랜드) to Nami Island (남이섬), and I keep it current in my Korean festival guide. The money side, including why a field costs more than it looks, is in my piece on festival economics.
Too Many People in Too Small a Space
The other thing that carried over from 1989 is the risk of a crowd too big for its space. In July 2024 the Boiler Room night at Sfactory (에스팩토리) in Seoul was stopped early as Peggy Gou took the stage. Fire services estimated around 4,500 tickets for a 2,000 capacity venue, and at least five people had breathing difficulties, as RA reported. Boiler Room disputed that it oversold. I won’t add to that record. It’s still the case I think about when I look at a door count.
Regulation has since moved down to smaller events. In April 2026 the government began drafting crowd safety guidelines for events under 1,000 people, covering planning before the event, separate entry and exit, and density monitoring of the kind used at the BTS event in Gwanghwamun (광화문), according to Asia Economy. The Sunrise generation spent five years a step ahead of the authorities. In Korea the safety rules are arriving before the next big outdoor scene does, and that’s the right order.
The work kept going through the summer. On 13 July 2026 the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (행정안전부) named 25 outdoor events as priority targets for crowd management and said a crowd safety manual and a model ordinance for small festivals and events would go out to local governments within the year, Newsis reported. What those standards will require of a specific organiser is a question for the district office and a qualified safety planner, not for me.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the M25 orbital raves?
The orbital raves were large outdoor parties held at changing locations around the M25 orbital motorway, pioneered by Tony Colston-Hayter’s Sunrise organisation. Attendees called a hotline number hours before the event to learn the location. Sunrise’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at White Waltham Airfield on 24 June 1989 drew thousands.
What did the Criminal Justice Act 1994 do to raves?
Section 63 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 gave police powers to break up open air gatherings of 100 or more people playing music defined by repetitive beats. The Act was fiercely controversial. By the time it passed, acid house had already produced a generation of DJs, an outdoor festival infrastructure, a legal club circuit and four distinct genre branches.
What role did the Haçienda play in UK rave culture?
The Haçienda in Manchester, opened in 1982 and funded by Factory Records and New Order, was the precursor to the rave era. In 1987 and 1988 it became the place where British audiences first embraced Chicago house in real numbers. Graeme Park, who had been playing imported house records while working at Select-a-Disc in Nottingham, joined Mike Pickering on the Haçienda decks in 1987.
What did the UK rave era leave behind?
A festival infrastructure, a model of mass gathering and a growing legal club circuit, including Ministry of Sound, which opened in September 1991. It showed that young people could organise large events without institutional support. Its playbook of a location revealed late and a crowd that finds its way still shapes warehouse parties and camping festivals, with encrypted group chats in place of phone hotlines.
Further Reading
- Everybody in the Place, Jeremy Deller (BBC, 2019): an artist’s classroom history linking acid house to the miners’ strike and Britain under Thatcher.
- Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds (Faber): the standard history of rave, with the orbital parties and the Criminal Justice Act told from the dancefloor.
- Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton: the wider DJ story, including the route from Ibiza to London that sparked acid house.
- Museum of Youth Culture: Raving in Rural Locations: photographs and testimony from the fields, barns and quarries that hosted the parties.
- Sunrise and Back to the Future: a concise record of Tony Colston-Hayter’s promotions, including the membership card defence used after White Waltham.
- Chris Sheppard: background on the Toronto DJ and the Pirate Radio Sessions mixes that carried the sound across Canada.
- The Korean rave: how underground events work outside the clubs
- The Korean DJ festival guide
Sources
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, Section 63 (legislation.gov.uk)
Phatmedia flyer archive: Sunrise, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, June 1989
The Guardian: thirty years since the second summer of love, 2018
Red Bull: the M25 illegal raves
Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, on the Criminal Justice Act
Resident Advisor: Boiler Room Seoul stopped early, July 2024
Nocut News: breathing difficulties at the Sfactory event, July 2024
Asia Economy: crowd safety guidelines for small events, April 2026
Resident Advisor: TOR Festival 2026 listing
Newsis: Ministry of the Interior and Safety summer crowd safety meeting, 13 July 2026
Written from Seoul, by someone who has been in the booth for more than twenty years. More on the site, or book a DJ.
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