The Psytrance Party

Since the mid 90s psytrance has been viewed as a hedonist culture where participants seek to get into a trance-like state through all night dancing and drugs consumption. This ethnographic study explores one particular psytrance event to highlight the importance of social connectivity and the generation of a modern form of communitas, a term from anthropologist Victor Turner. The data at that 2008 Offworld festival in south England demonstrates that participants found the psytrance experience enjoyable and enriching, despite an apparent lack of overt euphoria, spectacular transgression, or sustained hedonism. Attention in particular is paid to the event’s many materials such as site spaces, infrastructure, organizers, sound systems and drugs. Important too is the DJ-dancer relationship, which remains fundamental to this space and scene. This work adds to a growing body of work on psytrance and contributes to popular music studies and youth cultures research, notably when related to field work methods and ethnographic approaches. It will appeal in particular to music culture students, outdoor event participants and researchers in social studies and cultural anthropology