Clever Rave Flyer designs

Designers have tried many looks on rave flyers from futuristic, erotic to retro, some even creating whole pieces of original artwork.  Some of the cleverest designs have been parodies of famous brands products or TV programs.  Companies like the Eclipse, Amnesia House, Sterns and Quest led the way.   We include some of those images below.  Which have we not mentioned?
View rave flyer archive to choose your fav...

Whats the best ever rave flyer?

With over 20 years of rave flyer designs to look at it maybe a hard job to pick out the best one.  We of course love our early ones including Fantazia Summertime with the computer generated designs as they were simple but iconic for the time but the work involved in creating them does not compare to our latest range of flyers that are far more complex which is allowed by much more powerful computers, layered photoshop images and greater availability of extra images.  But I digress. Even I don't see a Fantazia flyer as the best ever rave flyer (though I do wish it was!).  No in my personal opinion the winner from all those years has to be.....

Universe Tribal Gathering 1993.   Not only was the party huge, but so was the flyer.  Multiple pages and featuring original super hero characters. It was a real inspiration and the map of the huge site made the party look immense and of course all those that went know that it was.  I remember us all flicking through it time and again in the office marveling at how Universe could have afforded to produce it.  Its also a very collectable flyer now selling for over £10 each.  Many have copied its Superhero style over the years and it has served as an inspiration to our own latest event flyer for Fantazia Superheroes at Motion on the 31st March.  Whats your favourite flyer and why?

A host of Fusion and Fibre Optic rave flyers added

We have added a host of Fusion and Fibre Optic rave flyers to the archive.  Fusion had a very distinctive series of rave flyers that still look great today. There venues range from the small from sterns, Bath Pavilion to Sanctuary and Wembley Arena.  See which is your favourite. View now...

100 new rave flyers scans added to the Rave Flyer Library

We have added over 100 new rave flyers to the Fantazia Rave Flyer library.  We have more than 600 other scans due to be added to the library over the next month.  We aim to make the library the largest and easiest place on the web to find a flyer scan free of charge. Addition this time fill in many of the blanks in the B, C, D and E sections by promoter including this great Diehard one featuring a load of flyers.   View more Rave flyers now...

What is the most expensive rave flyer that there is?

We have just sold a Dreamscape 1 flyer in mint condition for £25 equalling a Fantazia Club Tour at the Barrowlands flyer that we sold some time ago.  Generally flyers don't sell in very large amounts but it is undoubted that some have a special place in peoples hearts and that some just really are very rare compared to others.  We printed 1 million flyers for the Fantazia One Step Beyond event in 1992 (the biggest event of ours by some way) and yet they are still very collectable which means rarity is not everything in the price as with that many floating around it just can't be as rare as other event flyers that where only printed in the 000's.

What is the rarest flyer you know about? Which would you love for your rave flyer collection and why?  Did you go to the event or just love it as a form of artwork?

Whats the worst ever error on a Rave flyer?

We love rave flyers as an artwork, but they were an advert back in the rave days and still are today.  Computers back in 1992 were not widely owned or used and certainly your typical rave promoter was not someone you could guarantee would be good at typing, spelling (or even reading) and many had a tendency to over exaggerate the attractions at a rave event to make it sounds as appealing as possible.   Ignoring these exaggerations (he says blushing) what obvious blooper mistakes have you seen on a rave flyer?  I was looking at a Fantazia Club Tour flyer from back in 1993 (Club Tour 9) and noticed that it had the event listed in the wrong year!  Doh!  No harm done I guess as people would realise when it was but I am sure other companies must have got the actual day wrong? Maybe the venue?

Why did these things happen?  Time pressure, typing error, last minute changes to the license or venue the list goes on.  However let it be a warning to all you budding promoters out there!  Proof read, proof read, proof read oh and get someone else (and possible 10 others) to proof read your lovely looking artwork!

Do post your comments on the worst mistake from a rave flyer from then and now....enjoy a browse of the rave flyer archive...

Rave Flyer Library updated: Amazon, Amnesia House and more added

We added about 30 new flyers to the rave flyer library today infilling many of the images for flyers listed under A, B and C.  We continue to scan and add flyers as time allows and as always are pushing to finish them all as soon as we can.  Notable flyers added this time were ones from Amazon, Amnesia House, Awol, Bare Necessity, Bass Odyssey, Club Kinetic, 3D, Dance Paradise and many more.

As always if you have any scans we can use of early rave flyers do get in touch.

View the latest rave flyer additions added...

Buy this original picture that was used in this Eclipse flyer

If you are interested in purchase the original artwork that this flyer was based on do email sales@fantazia.org.uk your offers!  Own a little bit of rave history.

What would an original piece of rave artwork be worth?

We were approached today by the original designer of some of the Eclipse, Coventry's artwork wanting to know what the original hand draw image might be worth.  We had no idea.  What do you think? The flyers can sell for £10 so would £50 be enough or £100 or is it just priceless?  Well we hope to be able to put a price on it soon as the designer may be looking to sell it and we will be offering it to you as soon as we get an interview and showcase of his other work up on the site.  It would be great to track down more of this sort of stuff!

Rave flyers were collectable by kids in 1992

Rave flyers were massively collectable back in 1992 check out this article about how rave flyers were the new swapping item in the playgrounds across the country.

Visual Energy by Simon Parkin now on Fantazia rave flyer dissertation

Thanks to Simon Parkin for giving us permission to reproduce his dissertation "Visual Energy" about how rave flyers influenced the acid house scene from the early days. Click the title link to read it the full piece.  Section 1 covers the origins and rise of the scene whilst section 2 is the one that deals the aspects of the flyers. With sections on piracy, visual sampling, technicolour, express your self and mind blown amongst others.

This is a great complimentary article to kick off our ever expanding rave flyer library with and it well worth a read.  Enjoy.

Evolution, The Edge & Equinox & Quest flyers added

Our big push to finish the rave flyer library continues a pace with another 100 images added today alone, including flyers from Evolution, The Edge, Equinox, Dance Trance & Quest amongst others added.

We are determined to keep the pace up and get all the flyers in our collection scanned and added by the end of July.

We hope you enjoy being able to easily browse so many rave flyers in one place.  If you have flyers that we don't we are happy to receive scans to fill in the gaps in our collection.

Amnesia House and Desire flyers added to the library

Some great new flyer scans added to the library from Amnesia House and Desire added to the library. enjoy. Some real classics. In there

Rave flyer updated under way Eclipse, Slammin Vinyl, Starlight done

After a long wait which we at Fantazia really apologies to the old skool rave fans out there for the project to complete scanning in of all the rave flyers we have in our collection and available is finally back underway. Today we completed adding the missing flyers we have for parties from Eclipse, Obsession, Slammin Vinyl and Starlight,  we expect to continue to add flyers through June until they are all complete.  Enjoy

More Fantazia flyers onto t-shirt

We know how much you all love our flyers and we noticed recently we had not updated our t-shirt shop to allow you to get more of them on t-shirt.  So now we have! Including the recent tours of Scotland and our 20th Anniversary parties.  Oh and can you believe we did not have the Summertime one available. Now it is!

Fantazia Flyers on T-shirts
Or design your own

Follow Pez on Facebook and get insights from a rave artist legend

Just been looking at Pez the famous rave flyer artists page on Facebook.  Well worth checkout to get insights into the past and present of his rave designs.  Many companies including Helter Skelter and World Dance used Pez designs as the basis of their flyers.  Fantazia never did though.  Maybe one of our 20th anniversary bashes should feature a Pez, could we swap the current girl based designs?

View Pez's page on Facebook...

Natalie Bates flyer wall

Another amazing rave flyer wall this month thanks to Natalie Bates

Thrash's Flyer wall from the early 90s

Hi,

Just been reading your site & saw the request to send in photo's of old flyered bedrooms..... well, here's mine circa Xmas '93.

I lived in Bournemouth at the time in case you were wondering.... I'm the one with the curtains hairstyle in the photo.

Cheers

Thrash

We love these pictures.  Not just a wall but a whole bedroom.  Rave flyers were loved then and are still loved today.  So many of us had walls of them and we would love to see your rave flyer wall/bedroom pictures.  Who needed wallpaper!

Flyer Walls & Article on flyers

 Found these two recently about flyer collecting and a picture of someones flyer wall.  Class

Rave Flyers Trumps Game your suggestions

Its been a while since I create Top Trumps styles games for Fantazia events, drugs and rave DJs from the past and present and sitting here I was thinking of doing some new ones tonight to fill my night.  One I could do would be on Rave Flyers... whats 5 category's would be used?  My suggestions would be... Rarity, Age, Style, Collectability and Value.  Any better suggestions?