anabolic frolic

Aug. 29, 02:00 EDT The Toronto Star
Dancers rant for raves
Promoters say cost of policing destroys scene

Betsy Powell
Entertainment Reporter

Police are intentionally driving raves underground by forcing promoters to hire unnecessary paid duty officers and by pressuring venue owners not to rent their spaces for such events, organizers of this Sunday's rally of dance music enthusiasts at Nathan Phillips Square are charging.

In response, numerous rave promotion companies and venues that have in the past held raves in Toronto and surrounding areas have either cancelled their events or "suffered great financial losses" because of the added expense of hiring as much as 10 times the number of paid duty officers as in previous years, Jennstar, a promoter and member of the iDance 2001 organizing committee, told a news conference yesterday at City Hall.

"We are paying off the police to continue to have our events held," she said, adding the average payout per paid duty officers is $500 per event.

Instead, rather than fork out exorbitant costs, some rave promoters are going underground, not a place city officials want them to be, added councillor Joe Mihevc.

"We want raves to stay above ground," said Mihevc, who is chairperson of the Toronto Board of Health. "Once you drive a rave underground you lack any support mechanisms to ... react to any safe things that may occur. You don't have ambulances there ... you lack, perhaps, sanitation, you lack water, you lack legitimate security personnel."

Last summer councillors reversed a decision, by an overwhelming vote of 50-4, to ban raves from city property after an estimated 15,000 supporters turned out in front of city hall to show councillors that raves are peaceful and safe. The reversal followed months of heated rhetoric from police, the mayor and some city officials who wanted to outlaw legal raves after several high-profile drug-related deaths.

Clearly the issue remains a divisive one, Mihevc and organizers said yesterday.

"I'm sure there are voices within the police who are supportive of this kind of approach, and those who are not supportive of this kind of approach, and we need to get them on side," Mihevc said.

Toronto police Sgt. Robb Knapper denied police are attempting to shut the rave scene down.

"I think that's an unfair suggestion," Knapper said in a phone interview. "Our function as a police service in co-operation with the other emergency services is to ensure the event goes off safely and it takes X number of police officers to do that, that's basically what it boils down to."

Knapper said every event is treated differently and that a number of factors are considered when determining the assigning of paid duty officers, such as anticipated crowd size and the number of exits and entrances in the designated building.

Yet iDance organizers cited several examples to bolster their claims and called for an overhaul of the Safe Rave Protocol developed by the Toronto Dance Safety Committee, which includes ravers, police, public health and city officials.

In 1998, for instance, eight to 10 paid duty officers attended a Halloween event at the CNE Automotive Building with 13,000 patrons attending. It went off "without incident," they said, and cost the promoter less than $5,000. This past New Year's Eve, 5,000 people attended a party at the CNE's Better Living Centre, requiring between 30 to 40 paid duty officers at a cost of $22,000.

Such discrepancies suggest police are trying to price raves out of existence, something that has "broken the trust" established between the electronic dance music community and authorities, said Will Chang, another iDance 2001 organizer.

That's because it's now clear the Safe Rave Protocol lacks the clarity needed "to give promoters an idea of how many PDO (paid duty officers) would be required. For example, one officer per 500 patrons has historically been shown to be a number that works for everyone."

The typical ratio these days is one paid duty officer for every 150 patrons and has gone as low as one paid duty officer for every 50 patrons, Jennstar told reporters. In addition, some promoters must hire undercover and emergency task force officers, rent squad cars and pay administrative fees.

Knapper said it's up to police discretion to determine how many paid duty officers must be assigned to each event. Depending on the venue, one paid duty officer to 50 patrons would not be out of the question, he added. "If there's two floors and 17 bathrooms maybe it would go down that low."

Police, however, are willing to meet with organizers to discuss the issue, he said. "If they approach us, obviously we're willing to talk."

Organizers predict this weekend's free, outdoor event, sponsored by The Toronto Star, eye weekly and MuchMusic, could attract more than 20,000 people to Nathan Phillips Square. In attendance will be dozens of leading electronic music artists, DJs, visual artists, fashion designers, dancers and local community activists.

Everybodies_Daddy

They may be able to price the small, tight parties out of existance... like perhaps Biohazard, Tantrum, or Jedi Crew, but theh biguns' like Destiny (or Lifeforce), maybe Hulla, Big Bud are almost corporations in their own right.

I have a proposal, though... make the rules apply across the board- rock concerts, hip hop jams, nightclubs etc... and see if pissing off the entire toronto nightlife rather than just one "profiled" demographic has more effect.

Props to the Toronto Star for their fair report. It's nice to know that media can do other things to raves than discriminate.

MCED

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MrGuv (Mathiau)

WICKED!! point, perhaps this should be pointed out, to everyone, any one know a good way to do this?

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¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸© The trouble with life is there’s no background music ©¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸
¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸© Some people are alive only because it’s illegal to kill them ©¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸
¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸© God must love stupid people, he made so many of them ©¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸
¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸© They know what is what, but they don't know what is what........ they just strut..... WTF! ©¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸
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Everybodies_Daddy

I am so smart, SMRT, smart.

MCED

Roches

well, i think i have to say this.

i was at idance for about.. oh, an hour and a half.

i saw what i expected to see.

i overheard a couple conversations.. one was an order for K.. the other was (quote-unquote)
"I know what <dealer's name>'s K is like, and this isn't <his> K"

idance 2000 may have been a thinly veiled attempt at legitimacy, the one day where we all banded loosely together because the big bad government-and-media were going to stop our parties...

idance 2001 was a corporate-sponsored manifestation of vicious hypocrisy of the kind that makes the Scene so special.

buy a shirt, buy a cd, save the scene.
even some of the signs reflected the fact that the event was nothing more than microsoft--fucking MICROSOFT, of all things--paying your $20 earlybird, $25 in advance, $30 week of, more at the door if available so you could pick up an extra E.

this was clearly no longer a political event. which, i suppose, is ok - there are musical events that aren't political. but everything about the scene simply shows to what extent people are trying to exploit it for their own gain, everyone from some showoff "raver" or whatever they classify themselves as to... and i really can't understand this one... microsoft.

the north american scene has simply not been able to purchase its legitimacy as the european scene did.

the problem with the whole thing is this:
the simple fact exists that so long as drug use is held to be wrong, the scene in all its forms will be, ipso facto, wrong as well.

the scene will not cease to be wrong until it is held that drug use itself is not wrong. and that, unfortunately, is a battle we cannot win.

of course, if the scene weren't about drugs in the first place there wouldn't be that problem, but the fact remains that some huge percent of the people at any given event ARE THERE FOR THE DRUGS ALONE.

damn, thinking about it, i've rarely if ever had a conversation at a party, or even overheard a conversation, that wasn't about drugs.

and this is what we're trying to defend?

no, we're not defending it because it's right. this is not a valid cause. we're defending it because we like it, because we do it, and i suppose i have to realize my own hypocrisy, because i do it too, and i like it.

the world, it seems, becomes darker and more corporate with every passing step. we have lost our last refuge -- we have given it up voluntarily, even happily -- and this scene has forever ceased to be about being there, about simply being part of it. it has now become, like the rest of the world, about who you know, about how much money you have.

how much non-perishable food can you buy for the cost of an E? of an "urban streetwear" outfit? what does it mean about this society if there are both people who need donations of non-perishable food items and people who can afford a dozen E's every weekend?

in the end, though, it is as it always is..
everything - yes, everything - was worth it because i heard the sounds. i heard origin unknown himself for 30 minutes -- it didn't matter what he played, just that it was him -- and the concept behind that absolved the staring, the judgment, the showing-off, the K deals...

i felt like i was in a long, dark tunnel, with a very very bright light at the end, so brilliant, it was more brilliant than the sun.

kinda ironic. near-death experiences.
ketamine hydrochloride.
yeah, the abyssal void in which i spent two years of my life...
something i probably would never have done without the scene
see, it was supposed to make me into a big cool raver (as most of you seem to think it does)
only now i can't finish sentences, and all the really cool ravers walk away from me.

here's another quote.

people, realize, the druggies are telling lies
look at the country now
empty heads are feeling proud, feeling proud, feeling proud...

-- genaside ii - narramine (internal 33, 1991; possibly the first true jungle track, although anyone who spent their $90 of jib profit on a triple five hoodie would be able to tell you that i know nothing about jungle.)

Jess

i was at iDance from 12pm-11pm

we had Microsoft sponsoring iDance, yet I'm not sure where the money went

i was also slightly offended by all of tribe's logos everywhere and the lack of iDance signs-"freedom to dance" projected on to city hall would have been a much nicer touch rather than "tribe-magazine"

the girl doing lines off the bathroom toilet seat at 3pm made me nauseus

the amount of drugs there was unbelievable

the fight that broke out sucked

the disco ball was great

to me this was a much more social event, meet up with everyone before you hit the party...it was nice to see EVERYONE in one plac eat one time though

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Everybodies_Daddy

roches...

for however much you bitch and whine about the scene, I think you love it, deep down inside... otherwise you wouldn't bitch and whine so much. If you hate commercialisation, don't go. If you hate all the drug use, don't go. If you don't like the people in the scene now, don't go.

I agree that iDANCE 2001 didn't live up to the spirit of it's predecessor, nor did it share the innocent idealism, which in itself is a microcosm of the scene in Toronto. I wonder if all the politicians there were there because they care about youth and rave culture, or if it's just a venue that they can reach 20 000 people at once to express their personal political agendas...

The more appropriate question? WHO CARES? It's a free party, it's heart is in the right place. We reprasented well, made our voices heard.

Regarding the drug issue, I dabbled a little with meth 2 years ago, and decided that I don't need drugs to have fun at a party, and have partied sober since. I got approached once at the hulla pre-party, and did NOT get approached at iDANCE... which pleased me greatly.

In summary, NOBODY IS MAKING YOU GO RAVING.. if you're so bitter about the scene, DON'T GO... if you still care, work to make it better, one raver at a time instead of just bitching about how shitty things are...

MCED

Jess

i don't know if you were referring to me or roches about being bitter...

i am not a 'bitter jaded raver' (yet)

it's just that Microsoft was sponsoring this event, yet the system seemed to be smaller than last years, i thought because of the sponsorship and actually having money this year we would have had a better set up

I am curious to where exactly all the money donated from parties, cds, clothing, and the sponsorship went, and because this is a charity i think the public is supposedly allowed to view all the paper work...etc

anyway, i had a lot fo fun at iDance, and i saw so many people i haven't seen in such a long time

it was a party filled weekend, which was perfect to end the summer with...

Roches

well
ok, i was bitter because i showed up too late, couldn't find anyone, and didn't go to turbo to see zinc.

i wanted to see zinc.

um, well obviously i like raving. the bitterness comes from seeing its unnecessary ugliness. things i didn't see when i started.

actually, it's not stuff like people openly doing lines that bothers me. i probably saw more of that at one party in 98 than in the last year.

it's stuff like the showing off, and the superiority complex that some of them seem to have...

*shrug*

the main issue with idance this year, i think, is that after the ban was lifted last year the scene didn't suffer from external attacks as much as it kind of rotted from the inside. i think attitudes have been getting progressively worse over time, and there's definitely a major lack of promoters right now (as there has been since.. well, for a while actually).

the thing is, if the scene has shifted to clubs as it supposedly did last year, then why do so many clubs have such thin crowds?

and why, if the crowds are so weak, were there so many people at idance? damn. you could fill the basement of turbo like 10 times with a massif like that...

these people need to listen to their idance cds (i love that "where can i get a hold of some of this music?" quote!) and start taking up some empty floor space (but not MY floor space!)...