The UK is testing the relaxation of Covid rules with a trial festival this weekend in Liverpool, the Evening Standard reports. Fatboy Slim and Sven Väth will headline The First Dance at The Circus nightclub, which sold out its 6,000 tickets quickly - the first time any such event has been allowed for over a year. Clubbers will not be required to social distance or wear face coverings but will have to take a lateral flow test before entering the venue. The First Dance is part of the Events Research Programme (ERP), which will provide data on how events holding anywhere between hundreds and tens of thousands of people could safely reopen later this year.

"It’s like the Kyiv rave scene, taking over the Zone. I thought it was strange at first, when they asked me to play here. But then I thought, why not? Chernobyl is ours, it’s our history" - a DJ who played at Chillnobil, an illegal rave deep in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, told Literary Hub about bringing life back into the heart of the nuclear disaster. The organizers call themselves AVO, Anarkho-Vandalskyy Otryad, a “performance art theatre” whose aim is to "transform Pripyat - not destroy it as some are saying, but to use performance to bring attention to it".

Across the UK, young people are ignoring lockdown, strapping on bumbags and making for woods and fields. With the coronavirus pandemic having closed bars and clubs and cancelled or postponed festivals, raves are sweeping the UK - Guardian reflects on illegal raves being held in the UK. There were plenty already - 4,000 people in Daisy Nook; 2,000 people attended a “quarantine rave” in Carrington; 1,000 people raved in Brookhay Woods, near Lichfield; hundreds of revellers danced to house music in a forest near Kirkby; 1,000 people gathered in Stokes Croft near Bristol; police shut down a rave in an underpass of the M1 motorway in Leeds; hundreds gathered in a courtyard in Moss Side in Manchester. One raver Katie, who attended an illegal rave in a forest near Glasgow, summed it up pretty close: “I had this feeling of: wow, people really will go far for a party, won’t they?”.

Portugal's government announced restrictions on several areas of Greater Lisbon from 1 July, after reports of parties that attracted as many as 1,000 revellers. In Paris, the police clashed with the thousands who thronged to Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin and Marais district for the annual Fête de la Musique. In Berlin, more than 100 officers broke up a demonstration that turned into a spontaneous, 3,000-person party. In England, the police are grappling with a proliferation of illegal parties. In Spain, the authorities slapped a €10,400 fine on Belgium’s Prince Joachim after the royal breached the country’s quarantine rules to attend a party in southern Spain; he later tested positive for the virus. Guardian suggests these parties are to blame for the surge in new Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks.

6,000 people attended two illegal “quarantine raves” in Manchester, England on Saturday, June 13th, which left one young man dead due to suspected overdose death. According to the BBC, there were also three stabbings, and the rape of an 18-year-old-woman. Streams of young people were seen on their way to the two "quarantine raves" on Saturday evening. There was also a large police presence at both sites.

The UK party scene is rebellious, diverse and decentralised by its nature, including groups of hedonists, hippies, crusties, punks, anarchists, communists, and conspiracy theorists – all of which have little regard for the rules enforced by the police - but largely they have chosen to abide the guidance given on COVID-19. Not all, as Mixmag reports - several illegal raves have been held across the country despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint statement from two party crews, the organizers say that “free parties are about defying bad laws... That’s why we do squat parties - to give each other a sense of our collective power and help defy bad laws". 8sided blog announces The Road Rave, first ever US drive-in rave party.

Modern technology can be used to put on big unlicensed raves that have an old-school mentality - Mix Mag argues in their article about illegal rave crews in the UK setting up parties under the noses of the police. London-based party crew "SGL" was formed in November last year, and they have already organised three raves via a specially designed smartphone app. It transmits the party location to ravers in a way that can’t be monitored by police, and once there are around 200 people in the building then it’s much harder for the police to shut the party down, so they release the location over social media without worrying too much.

In recent years, unlicensed underground raves, which are run by decentralised networks of soundsystems and party crews, have flourished across the UK, the Guardian reports. These raves vary from 5,000-strong mega-raves in Bristol warehouses, to three-day breakcore soundclashes on south coast beaches, to intimate psytrance parties in the woodlands of Lancashire, and multi-rig “teknivals” on Scottish wind farms. The G names three roots of this phenomenon - widening social divides, ongoing Tory austerity and creeping gentrification.