Alan Lodge Presents 50 Years of Free Parties in Nottingham
Photographer Alan Lodge opens the Common Grounds exhibition in Nottingham, chronicling five decades of the UK free‑party movement.
Running until 12 December, the show features over 100 photographs that chronicle the musical and political landscape from 1976 onward.
Lodge recalls 29 August 1974, when police struck him with a baton at the Windsor Free Festival while more than 200 people were arrested and over 30 injured. "After the Battle of the Beanfield, the proud institution of the free festival and travellers’ movement ran into the sand," he notes about the crackdown that defined the era.
In 1985 the Battle of Beanfield saw 1,300 Wiltshire officers clash with a convoy of travellers heading to the Stonehenge Free Festival, leaving dozens injured. Lodge describes the event as the end of the hippie utopia and the start of a harsher chapter for the community.
"There was an optimism that I found in this new way of doing things," he says about the positive vibe.
Within the exhibition Lodge presents ten favourite shots from the ’90s, including images of festival buses, vehicles painted with “love cabbages,” and a piece titled “Sunglasses” featuring two now‑famous music figures. Each photograph captures the blend of fashion, style and community that defined the free‑party movement.
