What if Toronto’s rave scene had a universal resource database?

On Nov. 27, Emily Murphy and Lukas Switlicki’s workshop “Community resource sharing in the DIY Rave Scene” invites event organizers in Toronto’s underground rave community to put their heads together on a digital community resource-sharing platform as part of Together Apart’s conference programming.

Toronto’s rave community is at a crossroads.

Before COVID-19 hit, burnout rates were high amongst organizers, locations were hard to come by, and so were the stakes. 

The pandemic decimated audiences and revenue streams, but it also forced organizers to pool resources to make things happen in informal but responsible ways, many requiring proof of vaccination for their outdoor parties before the provincial government could even commit to a mandate.

“Smaller DIY collectives already have limited resources, and the pandemic just totally depleted whatever minimal resources were left after a year-plus of not being able to host any events. Most collectives didn’t have any monetary resources at their disposal, and yet, all summer there were events going on in a sort of renegade capacity under bridges, out in forests, and most of them were free to attend or donation-based, and with full production levels,” says Emily Murphy, who DJs under the name Venus in Foil and founded SOAK, a collective and club night aimed at supporting women and people of marginalized genders at the experimental edges of electronic music. 

“It was possible because people were sharing resources with one another, coming together to share equipment rentals for the weekend, things like this. It was kind of eye-opening, like, look at us, we can actually do this in an anti-capitalist way and not really compromise on the quality of events or the production level,” she continues. “That’s really inspiring and shows we don’t necessarily need to operate in this competitive sphere.”

For Lukas Switlicki, who makes techno under the moniker City Dance Corporation and started the Forth music collective, which also operates its own record label, the solution is right there.

“It’s as simple as having a list of things you need to get. And those things are kept underground or secretive or trapped within these cliques of knowledge around the city, because everything is so ad hoc around Toronto,” Switlicki says. “There’s no institution that brings everyone together.”

Together, Murphy and Switlicki imagine a future where the microscenes that make up the Toronto rave community come together to build each other up. On November 27, they’re bringing together members from the rave community for a workshop geared toward creating a digital platform for community resource-sharing in the DIY rave scene as part of Together Apart’s conference programming.

They say the platform could work like a database for material necessities ranging from production, sound, DJ, and lighting hardware to miscellaneous and staging items like coat racks and DJ tables. It could also track item availability, condition, whereabouts, and contact information for who has it. They’re also interested in listing immaterial resources like professional skills to connect users with graphic designers, grant writers, and tips for obtaining Special Occasion Permits (SOPs) for alcohol sales in informal settings through the Alcohol and Gaming Commission (AGCO).

How they’ll pursue it is purposefully open-ended, but the the initial spark of an idea is to collect and decentralize community resources in the spirit of recent public documents like the (since archived) public spreadsheet of women and non-binary individuals who actively DJ in Toronto that Intersessions founder Chippy Nonstop and Cindy Li (Ciel) once created as a response to a party’s lack of gender representation in 2017 and others that have historically been passed around in more private capacities. 

“I’m starting to see that people are creating these shared gear groups on Facebook and stuff like that; all of that stuff has existed for a while,” Switlicki points out. “I think it’s a matter of marrying those things together and creating a hub.”

There’s no wireframe in place or design to unveil TED Talk-style. Instead, Murphy and Switlicki are approaching the workshop as a community needs assessment and brainstorming session that will also inform subsequent organizing, development, and broader outreach, though a component of the discussion will revolve around collective governance. 

“We’re trying not to come at it from a top-down approach,” Murphy says. “We really want to see what people in the community are after, and that of course would influence the design as well.”

Workshop registration is by invitation only and restricted to active organizers in Toronto’s underground rave scene (interested individuals that fit that description can email soak.to@gmail.com), but Murphy and Switlicki are feeling energized by the skill diversity early registrants already account for. In addition to event organizing, Switlicki counts web developers, UX designers, grant writers, lighting designers and operators, accountants, and handyworkers among the “multi-talented, multi-faceted group of people that are willing to participate.”

“That’s the thing with DIY event organizing,” Murphy comments, “for most of us it’s not really our primary gig, so everyone has all these unique skill sets that they bring as well.”

For Murphy and Switlicki, that’s a strength that positions the workshop — and the platform by extension — to precipitate a network that’s uniquely robust. If they can galvanize the community in all its fragmented complexity to come together, it’ll be stronger than ever.

“I see this project almost like infrastructure, or power lines that are just laid around the city,” Switlicki says. 

For now the scope of the project is Toronto-focused, but the pair also sees opportunities to forge into other cities.

“It would be amazing to envision something in the future that connects different Canadian scenes,” Murphy reflects. “We already have some connections in Montreal.”

They’re also imagining real world manifestations of the project. 

“We’ve talked about the potential of there being some kind of community space that also operates as a central storage unit. So there are bigger hopes and dreams that would see this project extended.” Murphy says. “This is kind of a first step.”

Emily Murphy and Lukas Switlicki’s ‘Community Resource-Sharing in the DIY Rave Scene’ workshop runs November 27, 2021 as part of Together Apart’s conference programming. More information at toronto.paris