UPDATE 8/1/22:
Some confusion about the date for this one. Some are saying that it was the end of November, but one newspaper article (coming to this page soon!) published on Tuesday 10th December indicates that the party took place on 7th December.
A Spirals document entitled SPIRAL TRIBE’S CALENDAR OF POLICE HARRASSMENT AT FREE PARTIES – 1991-1992, still accessible via Wayback Machine, describes the bust at the end:
9.12.91– ASCOT FREE FESTIVAL, BERKS.
Police raid site during departure of sound systems. 3 arrests for ‘possession of controlled drugs’ – vitamin pills and tobacco.
NO CHARGE
Here is a transcription of News Of The World* article on this event:
TICKET TO RAVE
5,000 DELUGE SITE FOR ILLEGAL BASH
Chris Pharo reports
THE organisers of a wild rave party which attracted 5,000 youngsters, many dabbling with drugs, could have coined in £100,000 in advance ticket sales – the News can reveal.
More than 600 people, among them Prince Andrew, protested to police, jamming the 999 emergency line as the party raved on for 24 hours.
It began at midnight on Saturday, when new age travellers with a group of mystery organisers set up a massive sound and lights system on the Staravala [sic] site off Kings Ride in Ascot.
Within minutes, the huge eight-foot tall speakers were pounding out music while hypnotic lights swirled across the site.
By 3 am in the morning, some 5,000 partygoers, with some 2000 cars, had deluged the site reducing the handful of police officers sent to keep an eye on the illegal bash to mere car park attendants trying to keep the traffic off the roads.
Drink and drugs flowed,… but officers were powerless to act for fear of being lynched by the massive crowds.
Meanwhile, residents from all over the local area, including some living as far away as Martins, Heron and North Ascot, were swamping police stations with protest calls.
It seems the music was so loud that it blanketed nearby homes and Heatherwood Hospital just 500 yards away and instead shook windows and turned the stomachs of helpless locals up to a mile-and- a-half away.
Environmental health officers from Brucknell Forest Borough Council were also called to the scene, but were forced to remain incognito and powerless to act because police were so vastly outnumbered by the crowds.
Repeated requests for the sound to be turned down were ignored as the party raved on into Sunday morning.
The calls of protest continued and even Prince Andrew, driving past the site towards his home at Sunninghill Park, stopped and asked what was going on and what action police officers proposed to take to stop the bash.
A police 999 operator was telling callers that if nothing could be done to help Prince Andrew, nothing could be done to help them.
The party raged until midnight on Sunday, when crowds began to dissipate.
Police then took the opportunity of storming what was left of the party, making seven arrests and demanding the music be turned off.
All the arrests were for drugs related offences. In the moments after the police task force of around 25 officers stormed the site, the mobile disco had been spirited away by the shadowy figures of the rave.
Local residents told the News of the torture that the rave caused.
Mr Alfred Bye said: “It went on all night and day. They were even dancing in the road. The police must stop this in the future and I’m sure it will happen again. I had some of them knocking on my door and asking to use the phone. I told them they’d get a boot up the backside from me.
Mr Gerry Archer, who lives in Martins Heron, said: “The music made my stomach churn. I had no sleep and have now written to Andrew MacKay, MP, demanding he takes urgent action to get Government legislation that gives the police the power and resources to stop these things.
A spokesman for Bracknell Forest Borough Council said officers would demand that the landowners, the Crown Estate Commissioners, cured [sic] the site by the weekend and ousted the new age hippies illegally camped there.
Land agents were thought to have begun high court action on Monday to do just that.
Inspector Andy Steel, of Windsor Police, who mounted the police operation and raid on Sunday, said: “We fear they are already planning another event at the weekend. We will support the council’s demands to get the site properly secured and we have developed a contingency plan should that fail.”
A police source told the News that young people from London and Bristol had made up the majority of the party-goers and that some of the tickets for the rave had been sold at £20 each prior to Saturday night.
* If you are too young to remember News of the World, it was one of the crapper tabloid rags of the era. See if you can spot the parts of the story that are inaccurate bullshit 😉
And here is a second newspaper article, not sure which paper:
POLICE HELPLESS AS 5,000 ROCK THE NIGHT AWAY
By Jim Stevens
HUNDREDS of residents besieged the police with complaints as 5,000 people danced the night away at an illegal party just outside Bracknell.
But police and environmental health officers could only stand and watch as thousands of revellers turned up at the old Staravia site, off Kings Ride, Ascot, on Saturday night.
Prince Andrew even got caught up in the chaos. Buckingham Palace said he drove past the site while the party was raging, but could not confirm national newspaper reports that he stopped to ask police what was being done to stop it.
Police were massively outnumbered as more than 5,000 people who arrived in their droves for the party organised by New Age Travellers, who have been camped on the site for the last week and a half.
Deafening music from two sound systems in the back of vans pounded out from 10.30pm until just after midnight on Monday morning, when the number of revellers had dwindled to several hundred.
Drugs were freely available inside three dilapidated marquees, including ecstasy, cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine.
Police switchboards were jammed with more than 150 complaints from people living as far afield as Martins Heron.
After police and environmental health officers moved in on Monday morning there were seven arrests for drug and theft related offences on the Crown Estate land.
This is the fourth successive weekend rave in the Bracknell and Crowthorne area.
There was a smaller party on the Staravia site the week before and two previous parties at different points on the Devils Highway, in Crowthorne.
At the Staravia party’s peak, during the early hours of Sunday morning, there were up to 2,000 cars on the 40 acre site and a constant stream of between 10 and 15 cars queuing to get in.
Entry was free, although some people clearly came with tickets, police said. The lack of police manpower meant they were unable to safely accompany environmental health officers onto the site and ask the travellers to turn the music off.
“Bracknell borough’s assistant environmental services officer Steve Loudoun said: “When we went in at about lam on Sunday morning we realised it was a rather large event. Our powers to do anything are non existent without the back up of the police.”
On Sunday afternoon the police and council officers made another effort to negotiate with the New Age Travellers, but to no avail. Their main problem was being able to reach the sound system which was surrounded by a mass of people.
The music was finally switched off just after midnight on Monday morning when 20 police officers entered the site with council officers.
Inspector Andy Steel, who was in charge of the police operation, said: “If we had had 200 officers we still would have had problems.
“‘We had sufficient manpower to cover the police area but with an event like that you cannot dip into an endless pool.” He added: “We are aware of the complaints and we did everything we humanly could to control the party.’ “If we did anything pre-emptive, injuries may well have occured, not only to people there but to officers. “We may well have had serious problems if we had gone in at any time on Saturday evening or Sunday morning.”
Despite the recent wave of popular rave parties police are anxious to remain vigilant and do all that is possible to stop them.
Sergeant Steve Huckin, assistant chief press officer for the Thames Valley Police, said: “We do not really want to stop people having fun and enjoying themselves. We are not killjoys. But we are concerned because of the nature of the parties. They are unlicensed and do not have a public entertainments licence, which means they do not have all the protection of fire and safety regulations that a licence holder has. And there is a risk of people getting injured.”
With people also trying to peddle drugs at these parties the police were also concerned, he said. “The chief constables intention is to carry on taking action, even with the resource implications, to stop parties, prevent people being put at risk and minimise disruption to the community.”
Bracknell borough council will now be pressing for a change to existing legislation., giving them stronger powers to clamp down on parties. The landowners of the site were hoping to evict the travellers this week.
Here’s a third article, this one from the Sun was published on Tuesday, December 10, 1991.
Andrew In Rave Snarl-Up
By JANE McCORMICK
PRINCE Andrew was caught up in the chaos as police tried to break up a 5,000-strong acid house party, it was revealed last night.
Andrew, stuck in a huge traffic jam, pulled up and asked an officer: “What on earth is going on?”
The prince was driving past the illegal rave at Ascot, Berks, on the way to his Sunninghill Park home two miles away.
Blast
Police failed to stop the party in a 40-acre field, which blasted music for 24 hours at the weekend.
Inspector Andy Steel said: “The Duke of York was driving past the site.
“He stopped to find out what was being done about it.”
Police eventually broke up the party and arrested seven people for drug offences.
NB This post refers to the second party at this site, for the earlier do, please read this post: https://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/saturday-23rd-november-1991-free-party-at-staravia-factory-ascot-berkshire/
More from Snufkin:
That Ascot party was awesome. Last day of November 1991 and it was cold, minus ten at least I’d say. We had been living there ten days or so, on the site of a demolished jet engine factory called Staravia. The site had been used for storing pea gravel so there were mounds of the stuff everywhere and huge ruts frozen solid.
… Easygroove turned up with the whole Circus Warp crew and added their tent onto our shambles. Spirals turned up later and they had to stay out in the cold. I remember walking away from the party at one point, tripping my tits off I turned back to look. There were 5000 people raving in a bodged together tent and the heat of their bodies formed a fog around the tend, which pulsed and throbbed with the lights. As I watched, the fog sat up on its haunches, like something ethereal out of ghostbusters, smiled a snaggletooth smile at me, winked and then settled back down again, curling itself around the party contentedly. No, really!
I can’t remember how long we partied for, maybe til tuesday, it got pretty twisted by the end. I had the burner going in my trailer all the way through and the site was big enough that it was possible to sleep now and then, but I don’t remember too much sleeping..
Here’s a map: http://wikimapia.org/9626663/Spiral-Tribe-Rave
Thanks again for the nice long comment Snufkin. Does anyone else remember this at all? Any photos?
UK Free Parties and Free Festivals 1988-1994 