Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers. The genres of electronic dance music played include house, trance, psytrance, techno, electro house, drum and bass, UK Hardcore, breakbeat, dubstep, hardstyle and many others with the accompaniment of laser light shows, projected images and smoke machines.

Teknivals (the word is a portmanteau of the words tekno and festival) are large free parties which take place worldwide. They take place most often in Europe and are often illegal under various national or regional laws. They vary in size from dozens to thousands of people, depending on factors such as accessibility, reputation, weather, and law enforcement. The parties often take place in venues far away from residential areas such as squatted warehouses, empty military bases, forests or fields. The teknival phenomenon is a grassroots movement which has grown out of the rave, UK traveller and Burning Man scenes and spawned an entire subculture. Summer is the usual season for teknivals.