There are two definitions of the word "rave" in use right now, and which one you use tends to depend (but not always!) on your age.

If you attended raves prior to the advent of cell phones with good low-light camera performance (say, before 2012 or so), you understand raves to be underground, dance-centric affairs where people danced all night to electronic music (house, techno, etc), took drugs, and generally did not face the DJ. Though the era of DJ worship had begun by 2012, it was still young, and most raves of this era were about the dance floor. People tended to dance with each other, and faced any direction necessary to do so. Facing the DJ was rare, though it did happen.

Keinemusik at Giza Pyramids, 2024

If you're younger, however, you came into the scene after cell phones were ubiquitous, and as a teen you grew up with phones being very present and normal. "Raves" of this era (and of the present day) tend to be concerts where people stand up and face one direction -- the stage -- where there are lights and visuals and where the focus is on the stage. People dance shoulder to shoulder with their friends, but tend not to face their friends, nevermind facing strangers. It's common at these events to use one's camera to film the action, and as any even mildly experienced amateur videographer knows, dancing while doing so hurts the quality of the video, so for the most part, these folks stand still when filming (deadening the dance floor with their still mass).

It's obvious which of the two types of "rave" I prefer, but I'm a realist and know that we're never putting the phone genie back in the bottle. Also, the commercial machine makes more money when it puts DJ talent on a stage and builds a big production around them. The spectacle turns attendees into adjunct social marketing interns and content bots, further enhancing the reach of the brand and the event, and increasing future sales.

There's a recent-ish backlash against phone-centric events -- more and more venues, even some big Ibiza clubs, are doing phone-free nights where phones are stickered or locked away. This is a move in the right direction, but we likely won't be able to ever go back to dancefloor-centric events except in niche pockets, like Despacio, Pikes, Berghain, Book Club Radio, and some of the new Cercle events.