“Il rave del progetto No-phone Warehouse è andato bene finché le regole non sono state infrante”

Used to be a DJ in clubs way back in 2008 – 2013. When I started, you didn’t even see the DJ for majority of the night. You used to always see friends dancing in their own circle enjoying themselves. It turned so quickly towards having the DJ front and centre of the whole event.

Phone usage was still present but nowhere near like today. It’s brought a whole different vibe towards club nights and I can’t say it’s for the better.

As someone who works in this industry, and indeed has worked at WHP, I must say I disagree with any “no phones” rule.

The issue can be bad in some instances, but in my experience it’s only when the music is low energy or mainstream (and I personally have nothing against either) and the production cost a million quid. So people are just going “for the show” and feel awkward dancing, so they film it instead. Guetta at UNVRS in Ibiza this summer for example. Nothing against him or his music, lovely chap, but it is a “show” more than a rave.

Keinemusik shows are a perfect example of this – [https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBMh48KvHYz/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBMh48KvHYz/?hl=en)

I actually quite like that music…..for playing in the background at a beach bar in Ibiza during a hot lazy afternoon. In a club it is boring as shit, so people feel awkward just standing there doing nothing. So they film. And then you get that insane scene.

Plenty of decent club events or festival arenas don’t have any “no phones” policy but it sorts itself out, because people don’t want to film. Teletech is a great example of this – proper mental techno music (bit hard for my tastes) but hardly anyone is filming, no one at smaller events.

Frankly that means it just polices itself – if the music/lighting/atmosphere warrants a proper rave vibe, then either no one is filming, or only a few people are and it isn’t bothering anyone.

If it’s boring elevator music, or the production is the focus over the music itself, then of course people are going to film, and you weren’t going to get a decent atmosphere with people dancing *anyway* so phones have nothing to “ruin”.

> “It was a strange feeling because, I wanted to respect the rules and enjoy a phone-free rave.

> “But by the end of the night I’d gotten my phone out and taken a video because there were that many people doing it, I thought ‘why should I follow the rules if they’re not’.”

Honestly sounds like she was part of the problem.

If people genuinely wanted this, someone in the crowd would have had a quiet word to the first guy, but no one bothered – everyone was just waiting for the first person to breach the rules so they could claim they were “just following the trend”.

if you want to use your phone at raves then use it if you don’t then don’t I really couldn’t give a shit. they tried it at fabric for a while completely unenforcable. you went raving in 2009 when you had brick phones, congrats you’re old I don’t see why that should affect peoples lives in 2025.

i swear it’s just people trying to boost their ego who make a big deal about it. if someone wants to take a lil vid of a drop then let them be. that’s their special night they might be trying to capture a memory for a reason and that’s no one’s business.

There’s such a big difference also between how phone photos were used then and now. Then they largely stayed on the phone or were shared in more private circles but now it’s straight to maximally public social media posts which are easily discoverable. These people will tag the venue and event, so its fairly easy to block people from entering who post publicly. It wouldn’t work for one-off events but for a regular thing it might work.