Circle Line Party
Encyclopedia
Subway party
A subway party is a celebration that occurs on a mass transit system. Generally, people meet at a predetermined station in their city's mass transit system, wait until their numbers have achieved critical mass, and board the train...
occasionally held on the Circle line of the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
. Although the time and place of these parties is pre-planned, the event itself occurs spontaneously, as each participant decides for themselves what sort of revelry, costume, decorations, snacks, libations and guests to bring to the party. The participants decorate the carriages festively, and play music, either live or on portable sound systems, disguised to appear as normal luggage.
Other activities include setting up pole-dancing poles on the trains. Free drinks, snacks and sweets are provided, often being provided from well-stocked portable bars and snack tables, which disappear as the train arrives at the station. Commuters are invited to participate in the parties.
To maintain a low profile while the trains are in the stations, most participants only revel and frolic once the trains are in tunnels. Permission is not sought from London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
or the British Transport Police
British Transport Police
The British Transport Police is a special police force that polices those railways and light-rail systems in Great Britain for which it has entered into an agreement to provide such services...
for Circle Line parties, and police sometimes stop trains for long periods to break the parties up. However, their organisers, typically linked to anarchist groups such as the Space Hijackers
Space Hijackers
The Space Hijackers is a group originating in the United Kingdom that defines itself as "an international band of anarchitects who battle to save our streets, towns and cities from the evils of urban planners, architects, multinationals and other hoodlums"...
, claim that Circle Line parties are not meant to disrupt travel, but to "reclaim the public space from the advertisers and give it back to the people to whom it belongs".
May 2008 Circle Line party
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Mayor of London
The Mayor of London is an elected politician who, along with the London Assembly of 25 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Greater London. Conservative Boris Johnson has held the position since 4 May 2008...
Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British journalist and Conservative Party politician, who has been the elected Mayor of London since 2008...
announced that drinking of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
would be banned on public transport from the start of the next month. Many people then thought up the idea of a Circle Line Party to be held at the end of the month to celebrate the last night of legal drinking on the London Underground, and spread the idea on the social networking website Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
. The plan quickly received media attention and was mentioned in several newspapers.
On 31 May 2008, the night itself, thousands of people attended, the largest Circle Line Party ever. Some had come in costumes ranging from 1920s prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
to dressing up as Boris Johnson himself. Although mostly peaceful, seventeen people were arrested by police due to disorderly behaviour, six tube stations were closed and eventually the entire Circle Line was suspended for the rest of the night.
A year later on 13 December 2009, the Circle Line was converted into a new spiral shape with trains starting at Hammersmith and terminating at Edgware Road. This will make any future attempts at a Circle Line party trickier to manage, as the trains no longer go round in a circle and terminate at a fixed point instead.