8-598: The Stonehenge Free Festival was a British free festival from 1974 to 1984 held at the prehistoric monument Stonehenge in England during the month of June, and culminating with the summer solstice on or near 21 June. It emerged as the major free festival in the calendar after the violent suppression of the Windsor Free Festival in August 1974, with Wally Hope providing the impetus for its founding, and
16-505: A combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by a camping community without centralised control. The pioneering free festival movement started in the UK in the 1970s. David Bowie's song Memory of a Free Festival , recorded in September 1969 and included on
24-770: The 1969 album David Bowie , mentions the free festival organised by the Beckenham Arts Lab and held on the Croydon Road Recreation Ground on 16 August 1969. The 1972 to 1974 Windsor Free Festival , held in Windsor Great Park , England, was a free festival. The 'organisation' was mostly Ubi Dwyer distributing thousands of leaflets and asking people and bands to bring their own equipment and create their own environment – "bring what you expect to find." "Free festivals are practical demonstrations of what society could be like all
32-643: The Children of God, Brent Black Music Co-op, Killerhertz, Mournblade , Amazulu , Wishbone Ash , Man , Benjamin Zephaniah , Inner City Unit , Here and Now , Cardiacs , The Enid , Roy Harper , Jimmy Page , Ted Chippington , Ozric Tentacles , Solstice and Vince Pie and the Crumbs, who all played for free. 51°10′44″N 1°49′34″W / 51.17889°N 1.82611°W / 51.17889; -1.82611 Free festival Free festivals are
40-405: The open drug use and sale, contributed to the increase in restrictions on access to Stonehenge, and fences were erected around the stones in 1977. The same year, police resurrected a moribund law against driving over grassland in order to levy fines against festival goers in motorised transport. By 1984 police–festival relations were relaxed with only a nominal police presence required. The festival
48-511: The time: miniature utopias of joy and communal awareness rising for a few days from a grey morass of mundane, inhibited, paranoid and repressive everyday existence…The most lively [young people] escape geographically and physically to the ‘Never Never Land’ of a free festival where they become citizens, indeed rulers, in a new reality." Un-authored leaflet from 1980, quoted in George McKay's Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since
56-743: Was a celebration of various alternative cultures. The Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troupe, The Tepee People, Circus Normal, the Peace Convoy , New Age Travellers and the Wallys were notable counterculture attendees. The stage hosted many bands including Hawkwind , Zorch , Poison Girls, Doctor and the Medics , Flux of Pink Indians , Buster Blood Vessel , Omega Tribe , Killing Joke , The Selecter , Dexys Midnight Runners , Thompson Twins , Bronz , The Raincoats , The 101ers , Jeremy Spencer &
64-565: Was itself violently suppressed in 1985 in the Battle of the Beanfield , with no free festival held at Stonehenge since although people have been allowed to gather at the stones again for the solstice since 1999. By the 1980s, the festival had grown to be a major event, attracting up to 30,000 people in 1984. The festival attendees were branded as hippies by the British press. This, along with
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