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Music

Inside the UK's Illegal Raves

In 'LOCKED OFF' we explore the current state of illegal raves in the UK, where young people are breaking into buildings to hold parties until the early hours.

Rave culture is one of the UK's great cultural exports, but after its first wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was forced into the underground by stringent new laws and the rise of licensed super clubs.

Fast-forward 25 years into the midst of a nationwide purge on the UK's nightlife, where nearly half of all British clubs have shut down in the last decade, and a new kind of scene has emerged: a 21st century version of rave, where young people break into abandoned spaces with the help of bolt cutters and complicated squatting laws, to suck on balloons and go hard into the early morning.

But with the police using increasingly extreme tactics to clamp down on these parties and more than one fatality causing a nationwide media panic, can the scene survive?

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