Tony Davis photographed Britain’s early-1990s rave scene across the Midlands. His archive covers DiY events at the Marcus Garvey Centre, nights at Venus and Kool Kat, The Eclipse in Coventry and the early-morning gatherings at Sandbach Services after Shelley’s Laserdome in Stoke-on-Trent.
These are photographs of ravers, not a roll-call of famous DJs. The names, line-ups and venues locate the history, but Davis’s subject is the crowd: faces caught by flash, friends leaning into the frame, baggy clothes, packed rooms and the hours between leaving a club and getting home.
Made between 1990 and 1992, the photographs give the Midlands rave scene its own geography and character. Nottingham, Coventry and Stoke were connected by club nights, free parties, record shops, sound systems and motorway journeys. Davis was there with a camera, watching closely and taking relatively few pictures.
In 1991, ravers leaving Shelley’s Laserdome in Longton would often stop at Sandbach Services. They parked up, played tunes and carried on the night before setting off again in the small hour of the morning.
It was not an organised after-party, for many who went to Shelley’s and other Midlands clubs, stopping at the services became part of the night.
Davis photographed the ravers who gathered there. Away from the darkness and noise of the clubs. One of his best-known Sandbach photographs shows three friends sitting in a red Vauxhall Chevette. One of the trio known as Cossack, pictured in the back with a stereo, sadly died some years later. His friend sitting beside him subsequently contacted Davis told him about the night and Cossack, and now owns a print of the photograph. He remembers that early 90s rave era as some of the best days of his life.
That contact gave Davis more of the history behind a picture that had already become familiar to a much wider audience. It is an ordinary scene, three mates sitting in a car after a night out, which is precisely why it resonates.
Shelley’s opened in Longton in 1989 and became one of the defining clubs of the rave era. Sasha was closely associated with the venue, while DJs including Nipper and Carl Cox also played there. In September 1991, Altern-8 filmed the video for Activ-8 (Come With Me) in the Shelley’s car park after the club had closed.
Stoke already had a substantial dance music history. The Torch had drawn Northern Soul followers to the city during the early 1970s, while Shelley’s and Golden at the Void brought another generation to Stoke during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Davis’s Sandbach photographs show what happened once the club had closed. The music continued in parked cars, friendships developed and the night finished in its own time.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Tony Davis grew up on Nottingham’s Clifton Estate during the 1960s and 1970s. Although he came from Nottingham, he supported Derby County and regularly followed the club home and away.
The football terraces introduced him to the music and clothes circulating among young people during the 1970s. T. Rex and Bowie were part of that world, followed later by punk.
Davis also travelled to Northern Soul nights. He attended the Torch in Stoke-on-Trent and first went to Wigan Casino at 17.
Football grounds and Northern Soul all-nighters taught him about cultures built around travel, records, and a shared affinity. People formed friendships on coaches, trains and motorway journeys as much as inside the venues. Rave redirected some of those same weekend habits towards clubs, warehouses, free parties and service stations.
Davis already understood how a crowd formed and how clothing could mark out a shared interest. He also understood that the hours surrounding an event could be as revealing as the event itself.
Photography came later. After working in several jobs during his twenties, Davis enrolled as a mature student on a two-year BTEC photography course. Early surviving work includes a group of girls with BMX bikes in Lenton, Nottingham, photographed in 1989.
He was subsequently offered a place on a photography course in Newport. Following the birth of his daughter, he declined the offer and continued developing his work independently.
In 1990, Davis travelled to Italy for the World Cup on his own initiative, positioned somewhere between football supporter and photographer. After returning to Nottingham, he began photographing the rave nights developing across the Midlands.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Davis was several years older than many of the ravers he photographed. He has described himself as “an observer rather than a participant”, although his experiences of football and Northern Soul meant that he understood the codes surrounding the scene.
His method was economical. On some days, he made about 35 frames. He kept the camera lowered, watched what was happening and waited. Inside a club, one exposure with flash could be enough.
“I blagged it in really, turned up with my camera,” he later recalled. Access was generally informal.
His attention stayed with individuals and small groups. Some acknowledge the camera; others remain occupied by their friends, the music or something outside the frame. The pictures depend on expression, proximity and the quick arrangements formed within a crowded room.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
DiY formed in Nottingham in 1989 around a group including Harry Harrison, Rick “Digs” Down, Simon “DK” Smith and Pete “Woosh” Birch.
They had met through squats, house parties and Nottingham’s developing club scene. Members attended the Haçienda and the Garage/Kool Kat and travelled across Britain to hear DJs including Andrew Weatherall and Sasha. After spending considerable amounts travelling to orbital raves, and sometimes ending up stuck on motorways—they decided to organise events themselves.
DiY connected house music with free-party culture. Records and DJ equipment met sound systems, vehicles, marquees and the travelling festival circuit. The resulting crowds included students, squatters, travellers, football followers, punks and regular clubgoers.
Emma Kirby, DiY’s first female DJ, has recalled the way travellers and city clubbers came together around the collective. That mixture became one of DiY’s defining qualities. Its events crossed the boundaries that had separated different groups within more conventional nightlife.
The collective also ran Bounce at Venus from February 1991. It could operate in a licensed nightclub, a community venue, a warehouse or an outdoor free party without losing its identity.
Davis photographed DiY-associated events including Rhythm Collision 2 and Datura at the Marcus Garvey Centre. He later photographed a DiY free party in Wilford in 1992.
The Marcus Garvey Centre was not an anonymous hall hired for the night. Established in 1981 for Nottingham’s African Caribbean communities, it supported concerts, celebrations, recording, education, childcare and care for older people. Rave nights formed one part of a much broader cultural history.
At the Garvey, house DJs could appear on mixed bills alongside dub, punk and alternative acts. Davis’s photographs show that convergence: packed rooms, ravers close to speakers and brief periods of stillness within the crowd.
Actor and filmmaker Samantha Morton, who grew up in Nottingham, has recalled being a regular at both the Marcus Garvey Centre and Venus. Responding directly to BCA’s publication of Davis’s Marcus Garvey photograph, Morton described the Garvey as her favourite place.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
By 1990, Nottingham already possessed a layered dance music history. The Lace Market building that became the Garage and later Kool Kat had previously housed Ad Lib, a club associated with reggae, funk and post-punk nights.
Rock City had developed audiences for soul, jazz-funk, electro and hip-hop. In 1987 it hosted the Chicago house tour featuring Marshall Jefferson and Fingers Inc. At Part Two, Nottingham’s gay club, DJs had been beat-mixing Hi-NRG before house became established in Britain.
These earlier scenes created an audience ready for house music. They also explain why Nottingham’s early-1990s club culture crossed musical and social lines.
Graeme Park played imported house records at the Garage/Kool Kat before becoming closely associated with the Haçienda. The club was an important meeting point for the people who would go on to establish DiY.
Davis photographed Kool Kat in 1990. His pictures stay close to the dancers and small groups around them, allowing faces and clothes to describe the club more effectively than a wide view of the room.
Venus opened in 1990 and quickly became a major house destination. Davis first attended as a clubber before gaining permission to photograph. He later described Venus as “basically the Haçienda of the Midlands”.
His Venus photographs were made during 1991. Some of the ravers pictured have since identified themselves after seeing the work published by BCA, including groups of friends who had not seen the photographs for nearly three decades.
Taken together, the Kool Kat, Venus and DiY photographs show that Nottingham’s rave scene was never confined to one kind of venue. Commercial clubs, community buildings and free parties formed part of the same regional culture.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Coventry’s rave scene developed during a period of industrial decline, unemployment and social division. By the end of the 1980s, Amnesia House was organising large unlicensed events and attracting crowds from beyond the city.
The Eclipse opened in October 1990 inside the former Granada Bingo Hall on Lower Ford Street. Established by Stuart Reid and Barry Edwards, the multi-floor venue had a reported capacity of 1,600 and became one of Britain’s earliest permanent legal all-night rave clubs.
Its opening line-up included “Evil” Eddie Richards, Fabio, Sasha and MC Tunes. Mick Wilson was involved from the beginning and later DJed with Mick Park as Parks & Wilson. The club subsequently hosted artists and DJs including Moby, The Prodigy, Kevin Saunderson and Laurent Garnier.
The licence allowed nights to continue until 8am. Ravers travelled from Manchester, London and across the Midlands, establishing Coventry within a much wider dance-music circuit.
Davis has recalled that he photographed The Eclipse on only a handful of occasions. Those limited visits nevertheless produced one of the most familiar pictures in his rave archive.
In Ravers at The Eclipse, Coventry, 1991, flash separates a group from the surrounding darkness while retaining the density of the club. Some look towards Davis; others remain occupied by their friends or by activity beyond the frame. Hair and clothing establish the period, but the picture is held together by the connections between those present.
The Eclipse became The Edge in 1992 and closed in February 1994.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Davis’s rave archive closes in 1992, a decisive year for the free-party movement.
That May, DiY was among the sound systems gathered at Castlemorton Common in Worcestershire. The week-long event intensified press attention and political pressure on unlicensed parties.
Two years later, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act gave police new powers to stop gatherings where amplified music was characterised by a “succession of repetitive beats”.
Davis’s photographs were made immediately before that change. They record the short period when clubs, free parties and temporary gatherings were expanding quickly, while the official response was still taking shape.
By the early 2000s, Davis was increasingly working in education. Much of his analogue archive remained boxed and unsorted. Negatives and transparencies had been returned inconsistently by magazines, while other material had become separated or was lost.
During the first national lockdown in 2020, he returned to boxes stored in his garage. Some negatives had suffered damp damage, but a substantial body of work survived. Davis began scanning individual frames and sharing them online.
British Culture Archive contacted him that year. On 28 October 2020, BCA published the first substantial selection from the recovered rave archive, bringing the photographs together with dates, venues and Davis’s history.
Davis recovered and scanned the negatives. BCA has continued the work around them through research, captioning, publishing, editions, licensing and exhibition development, and now represents Davis and his photography.
Once the photographs returned to public view, former ravers began identifying themselves and their friends. They include the young woman wearing the Stüssy hat, groups photographed at Venus, ravers at The Eclipse and people appearing in the Sandbach pictures.
Public responses have also helped confirm venues, reconstruct journeys and return names and personal histories to photographs that had remained unseen for decades. Comments about catching the first train home, the rarity of seeing a camera inside a rave and recognising a friend have become part of the continuing research around the archive.
Photo © Tony Davis / BCA. All rights reserved.
Work from Tony Davis’s rave archive has been selected for Tate Britain’s The 90s: Art and Fashion, running from 8 October 2026 to 14 February 2027.
Davis is one of several British Culture Archive photographers included in the exhibition. His photographs bring Nottingham, Coventry and Stoke-on-Trent into a national account of British photography, fashion and visual culture during the 1990s.
The selection follows six years of work between Davis and BCA. At Tate Britain, the photographs will reach another audience, but their significance remains grounded in particular nights, friendships and journeys across the Midlands.
Davis did not attempt to explain the entire rave scene. He stayed close to the crowd, waited and made a photograph when the moment presented itself. That restraint is one reason the archive carries such weight today.
British Culture Archive has worked with Tony Davis since 2020 and now represents his photography for exhibitions, editions, publishing and image licensing.
This feature presents photographs made in Nottingham, Coventry and Sandbach between 1990 and 1992, including DiY events, Venus, Kool Kat, The Eclipse and the gatherings at Sandbach Services after Shelley’s Laserdome.
The text draws on continuing conversations with Davis, BCA archive research, first-person responses from those connected to the photographs and wider research into British rave culture. Named identifications are published only where they have been confirmed and agreed.
First published 28 October 2020. Last update July 2026.
