World Peace Party

It is a widely held belief that the World Peace Party was the first warehouse Rave in Africa. The date was Friday, 13th of September, 1990.

The event was produced in South Africa, by Cape Town based UFO productions. Founders Carl Mason and Jesse Stagg teamed up to start UFO (alleged to stand for alternately: Unlimted Freak Out or Unity of People, Freedom of Expression, Original Ideas). The event featured live musical acts in the form of proto punk-rappers the MC's from UNCLE, other local Rap and early House acts, and headlined by DJ Giorgio (?). The event ran for about twenty hours and was attended by approximately 3,500 people.

The venue was the Nautilus soundstage in the Paarden Eiland industrial zone, an area on the edge of Cape Town, reclaimed from the ocean. The location came with a 40 foot by 10 foot Infinity Curve, which was incorporated as an elaborate fluorescent mural that depicted the "journey of the beat" from Africa through Europe and the West and back to Africa in the form of a UFO. The mural was painted in a hip hop style and incorporated at that time state-of-the-art Commodore Amiga custom computer animations promoting positive affirmations and distinctive UFO branding. This level of artistic sophistication was revolutionary in the early years of the international Rave scene.

The World Peace Party featured an inside and outside area complete with the soon to be ubiquitous fun park of: inflatable castles, human gyroscopes and vendors serving fast foods and miscellany.

Given the political context of the time, and with a heavy-handed Apartheid regime still in power and Nelson Mandela still in prison, security was a major concern. The promoters assembled a large team of well-trained and mixed-race security personnel, who managed with great finesse and respect the overwhelmingly mixed-race crowd who had rarely, if ever, partied together with such abandon.

The following dawn many hundreds of participants lined the sided of the N1 highway as they walked the 5 miles back to Cape Town, hours after their transport had left.

As much a posse as a production company, the UFO team comprised a loose band of artists, designers, students, models, engineers and partygoers. UFO comprised in part: Nik Jevons, Brendan Smithers, Roger Young, Ray and Andrew Mackay, Nicole Abel, Toni Dorfman, Edward Petersen, among others.

The UFO production team went on to open several permanent venues to promote Electronic music, most notably the first dedicated Dance Club of its kind on the continent Club Eden.

Vandalism: During the ubiquitous marketing campaign, the signature black-and-white teaser posters, emblazoned with a strong 3D graphic of a Peace symbol and only the date, Friday the 13th of September, were vandalized with green paint across the city of Cape Town. Evidence suggested it was the work of a Christian fringe group, who took issue with the Peace sign, claiming Satanic influence. Ironically, the promoters used this controversy to their advantage and enlisted the State media to publicise the event.

Summerluv

Another event took place in the same location 6 months earlier, under the name Summerluv. This event was produced by Jesse Stagg in conjunction with Anton Resnekov. Although seminal, and well received, it was on a smaller scale with approximately 300 people in attendance.