The idea
The time has come for at least One annual sanctioned free festival under common law rules
We “The Free” are a growing collective of many groups and individuals and are willing to create an organisation capable of arranging, executing and funding a sanctioned free lawful festival.
Under Common Law an advertised free festival would be lawful, under statutes it is Illegal, an event would be worthy and visionary furthering fundamental rights and pursuing freedom to gather. To hold gatherings, encompassing music, song, the spoken word and performance arts without the constraints of a license or corporate commercialism, free festivals are part of our culture and heritage and indeed a right.time a
We are in a different world now from when free gatherings, fairs and to more recently large free music festivals took place. Many of these have gone and what hasn't been lost is under threat.
As a society we may need to move on but we need to create something to take their place, something that will fit in, something different. We understand the opposition to an open season on very large free gatherings that happen without control but we should be able to replace them with something, that is obvious.
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Gatherings, fairs and festivals are as old as time and part of our culture and traditions right up to the present. in recent times we have lost many old fairs and festivals.
In the latter part of the 20th century there had been resurgence of free festivals like Stonehenge Free Festival, Windsor Free, and others. These were very popular but were stamped upon by the Authorities, sometimes by quite harsh actions.
With the growing popularity of dance music after the closing down of the illegal pay parties of the late 1980's, a new type of free festival grew in the early 1990's with an energy unknown in free festivals that preceded them and a new breed of sound systems and a new phenomenon arose called freeparties and free festivals now coined teknivals.
Many thousands of people each week would meet, gather and dance all night and day at secret locations across Britain. Old festival dates were taken over like Beltain where tens of thousands would descend and mass unlicensed multi-rig festivals would take place. New laws and Draconian measures were taken to combat this including the decimation of the New Age traveller communities who were a driving force of these festivals.
After the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 there was a lull in free parties and free festivals but only for a year or two and before long a new wave, even more determined, continued. Even after 20 years of oppression, including new statutes and additions to existing statutes like the 2003 licencing act, these events still continue albeit smaller and hounded. The time has come for at least One annual sanctioned free festival under common law rules.
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together we can grow up
Why is it important?
Free events are our heritage and are a place where communities with a complete diversity of interests and culture can gather with a common interest of music and the arts from all parts of Britain, we would also welcome those from abroad too. Activities including various forms of art at a national/professional and local/amateur level, including abstract, conceptual and performance art and representational and figurative art. visual arts, performing arts such as music, dance, theatre, literature and poetry. Folk traditions like maypole and Morris dancing including traditional methods for crafts and trades,
It is a need and an essential part of keeping Britain a free country or we are being stifled and the country as a whole will loose.
Free parties and Free Festivals are now firmly part of our culture and heritage, they offer a place to go, away from "town center booze culture", they offer a way into the music industry, as a sound or lighting technicians and DJ's for people who would never have a chance otherwise, they form community spirit and a feeling of being part of something worthy beyond capital gain that has turned many a disillusioned person around and given them a sense of right, wrong and purpose.
Quote "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.(common law) I do not add 'within the limits of the law(statute law)' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual". Thomas Jefferson