Teknival

The parties often take place in venues far away from residential areas such as squatted warehouses, empty military bases, beaches, forests or fields.

The teknival phenomenon is a grassroots movement which has grown out of the rave, punk, reggae sound system and UK traveller scenes and spawned an entire subculture.

Desert Storm sound system organised teknivals in France and Spain and brought raves to war-torn Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 1996.

Just as the word 'teknival' was formed by merging the words 'tekno' and 'festival', teknivals in different countries are referred to by abbreviated names, such as the aforementioned Czechtek, Frenchtek (North France) and also Poltek (Poland), Slovtek (Slovakia), Southtek (South Germany), Bulgariatek (Bulgaria), Rotek (Romania) Helltek (Greece, Hellas in Greek), AlbaniaTek (Albania), Dutchtek (Netherlands), Easttek (East Germany), U-Tek (Ukraine), Northtek (Canada) and Occitek (Occitania, South France).

The music which grew in tandem with teknivals was free tekno, which is characterised by heavy, repetitive kick drums and is normally about 180 bpm.

Livesets are also frequently played using a variety of equipment: keyboards, drum machines, guitar effects pedals, MIDI controller and computers.

It is usually the perception that there is no "coherent" politics or philosophical stance represented by the teknival subculture, mainly due to the fact that emphasis is placed on individual freedom.

These clashes date back to the 1980s (when teknivals were arguably indistinguishable from UK Orbital raves, summer acid house parties, UK traveller gatherings, Stonehenge pagan events, early tribal gatherings, trance parties in Goa, India and the like) and have continued to be part of teknival life.

In April 2006 there was a march followed by a small teknival in Strasbourg, France to protest against police repression generally and more specifically against the closure of Czechtek in 2005.

This 'underground look' involves dark, baggy clothing (often ex-military) and extreme haircuts, such as dyed hair, dreadlocks or a shaved head (or a combination of the above).

Teknivals are organised by the sound system community using underground methods such as word of mouth, answerphone messages, flyer (pamphlet) and internet discussion boards.

[12] Currently French law permits free parties with 500 people or under (subject to no noise complaints), and while Prefets generally refuse the applications now required for free parties with over 500 people, through constant negotiations with the Ministry of Interior since the August 2002 teknival on the French/Italian frontier at Col de l’Arches where sound crews set up rigs inside the Italian border facing the party goers in France,[13] the French Government have reluctantly allowed up to three large teknivals each year, even though they are technically unauthorized events.

Teknivals also take place outside legal festivals such as Printemps de Bourges, Transmusicales in Rennes or Borealis in Montpellier.

UK Tek 2008 took place in a moorland quarry above Rochdale in north Manchester resulting in a significant police response, including attacking ravers with batons.

The UK Tek in 2009 took place on a remote hillside near Brecon, Wales at an abandoned pub called The Drovers Arms, that is used by the MOD as a training location.

In 2010 UK Tek was at Dale Aerodrome in Pembrokeshire, Wales again with approximately 2,500 attendees and police forced most people off site by the Sunday.

When Czechtek has been discontinued after the event at Hradiště Military Area in 2006, more smaller open free parties are held through all the year.

Czech travellers like Circus Alien, Strahov or Vosa continued to spread the vibe to various countries across Europe such as Bulgaria (from 2003), Romania, Spain, Poland or Ukraine (from 2006).

[citation needed] Bulgariatek began in 2003 and takes place annually in early August, usually somewhere on the Black Sea coast.