Inside the secret world of Sheffield’s free party teens

For Sophie*, a “full-time lifeguard, part-time partier,” one of the highlights of each free party has little to do with the music, the drugs or the crowd. There’s something uniquely exhilarating about stepping out of a (very expensive) taxi in the dead of night and hearing the distant thumping bass that confirms she’s in the right spot. After a few seconds getting her bearings, she’ll follow the music and the odd direction from partygoers taking a breather until she stumbles upon it. A hidden clearing, filled with dizzying lights, speaker towers up to ten-feet tall, surrounded by a writhing mass of revellers. As she points out, “everyone can go clubbing, but not everyone can go to free parties, so you do feel a little bit superior.”

If an unwitting pedestrian stumbled on such an event, unlikely as that would be, they might fear they’d interrupted some kind of maniacal, Dionysian bacchanal. “It’s one of the weirdest places ever,” says 19-year-old DJ Martin. “So many different walks of life are there partying together, from forty-year-olds down to school kids.” Despite this, Martin worries the community has been changing — for the worse — in recent years. Sophie, who also admits the parties have begun to lose their allure, describes the essential experience as almost bittersweet: intense euphoria as she dances the night away, then frantically booking a taxi as the sun rises and heading home to parents who haven’t been able to contact her all night. 

Free parties — so-called because they are free from the usual rules and regulations of legitimate club nights — first emerged in England in the 1980s. At first, they weren’t inherently illegal. However, in 1992, a week-long free party in Worcestershire prompted the government to create a new law in the hopes of snuffing them out. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave police the power to crack down on outdoor gatherings of 100 or more people playing amplified music with a “succession of repetitive beats,” transforming free parties from a counter-cultural movement to an illegal, underground scene. This did nothing to put a dent in their popularity.

The average party lasts from 10pm until noon the next day, although they can sometimes stretch to 20 or 30 hours, since the limiting factor is largely how long the generator powering the speakers lasts. As a result, heavy drug use is an inevitable part of the scene. “There’s not an average person on earth who can keep going for that long sober,” Martin says. Mary, a 19-year-old attendee, insists she would be unable to get the full experience otherwise — “hardcore music needs hardcore drugs” — although she feels the amount she partakes is relatively safe. (Given she describes sometimes realising she’s still dancing after the generator has cut off, others might disagree.) 

Other attendees, such as 18-year-old Rory, seem more cautious. “If you're going to a free party every week over the summer it naturally becomes a habit,” she says, pointing out that some attendees might go to two or three parties a week. “That said, it’s comparable to traditional clubbing,” she argues. “If you’re going out in town every week, then you’re probably binge drinking alcohol that often as well.”

It’s no surprise that free parties have attracted generation after generation of local teenagers — no one checks your ID and entry usually costs nothing, although some larger events might ask for donations. Lee, an 18-year-old rig-builder and organiser, says his crew pay for almost everything out of their own pocket — building materials, technical equipment, decorations, lights, generators, and cables — which often encourages collaboration with other crews to reduce costs. He got into the scene through his love of dance music while studying woodworking, which quickly made him an attractive asset to the community. Using blueprints he finds online, he’s able to construct the immense speaker towers that parties rely on, estimating he spends around 40 hours on each one. 

It’s clear that organising a free party takes an immense effort. At the earliest stage of preparation, a lot of consideration goes into selecting the location. “You have to balance making it accessible for attendees but also sufficiently distanced from the public,” Lee explains. Crews are also trying to pick the best spot for the predicted weather that night, which “determines whether you can work on soil or if you need gravel” to stop rigs sinking into the mud. Though the city has an abundance of abandoned warehouses, which some crews do make use of, most organisers are averse to having their parties in built-up areas, where they’re more likely to attract attention. 

Even finalising the line-up and deciding approximately when each DJ will play can prove unusually fraught — everyone, apparently, is desperate to secure the coveted 3am slot. Lee explains that any DJs in the crew itself and their friends will generally get first pick, but that there is “generally a level of disagreement involved”.