I went to the first NRG rave since Jay Slater vanished…drugs were rife & I was invited to lurid afterparty just like him
IT is 4am at a rave in an Ibiza club and a young lad is being carried out by two friends holding him up either side and a security guard after feeling unwell.
The event is the first one hosted by NRG Raves since the company held a three-day festival in Tenerife, which teenager Jay Slater attended before going missing on the island.
Through the night we were pressured into buying drugs, including one substance that the dealer acknowledged can be risky, and pressured to carry on the party afterwards with people we have just met, with ravers insisting the party “can’t end yet”.
Just like Jay, one raver even ended up in a remote villa with strangers he met that night after deciding to go back to party with them.
He had been seshing for five days straight, took six MDMA pills that night and ended up having to carefully walk down the gravelly mountain path the next day when taxis refused to go there to collect him.
He admitted it was “very” dangerous, but said: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Ravers insisted heavy bass music like this was made for people to take drugs with and that they would have a good time “no matter what”. They reckoned Jay’s disappearance was down to him either being with the wrong crowd, or not being able to “handle” the drugs he may have taken.
By 2am the dark venue, lit up only by the heavy strobe lighting, was packed with teens and 20-somethings stumbling around wearing sports gear or skimpy outfits and sunglasses.
You can’t come to an event like this and listen to this music and not get on it. What do you want? Pills? Coke? I’ll sort you out easily
NRG Ibiza reveller
A trip to the gents was often met with a queue for the cubicles, from which heavy sniffs could be heard.
Security to enter the venue was a light bag search. But it took just half an hour from entering the venue for a dealer to offer The Sun’s reporter.
Within minutes of being out in the smoking area, one man and his mate in shorts and a t-shirt, who boasted of having just done ketamine, approached us asking first how our night was going and how long we had been on the island.
It seemed like a friendly chat at first before, when we were firmly in conversation with them, we were asked if we were on anything or wanted anything.
“You’re not taking anything?”, the dealer said in disbelief, with a shocked expression. “Nah, we need to fix that.”
He insisted MDMA was perfect for this night, before offering super-strength Snapchat pills.
They were being sold for £15 – £5 more than the usual price – and we were told they were guaranteed to give us a good time.
Leaning against the wall and shaking his head as we explained we weren’t taking anything tonight, he insisted: “You can’t come to an event like this and listen to this music and not get on it. What do you want? Pills? Coke? I’ll sort you out easily. I’ll look after you, anything you want.
“Get some pills man, these ones make you feel so good.
“I can get you a good deal on them, but if you want it you’ll have to tell me what you want in the next 15 minutes or it’s gone.”
Telling him we would think about it, he replied: “You should just do whatever and get on it. Don’t worry about anything, you come to these places to get off your face and have the best time.”
Elsewhere in the smoking area were sunburnt Brits who were seemingly unable to stop moving, with clattering jaws, wide pupils and conversations about how big a sesh they were having on their holiday.
“We’re here to go all out. I’ve been drinking all day, now on cocaine and pills to see me through”, one said.
But there was a pressure to keep the night going even after the club rave had ended.
Another dealer, after telling us he could get whatever we wanted, then asked: “What are you doing after tonight? I’m going to carry on back at mine. You should come.
“The afters is where it is at, you don’t want your night to end here.”
One raver the following day described his night: “A rave in Eden, six pills, a house party in the mountains after and hope at 2pm the next day.”
You come to these places to get off your face and have the best time
NRG Ibiza reveller
He responded “real talk” when we said “I’d be scared I was going to die”, adding: “I had to walk down the mountain to get a taxi because Uber wouldn’t collect in the heat. It was about a 15 minute walk in the mountain on a gravel path in 30 degree f***ing heat.”
He said it was “very” dangerous, joking: “Six pills deep tripping balls. I have a high tolerance for pills but f*** my life.”
The villa he went to was sprawling with six rooms, a pool, and a life-size Zebra that “nearly sent me over the edge”. He went with two DJs – strangers he met on the night – and some others.
He added: “It seemed like a great plan at the time.”
It had a strange and eerie similarity to how Jay Slater went missing. He spent the day at the festival in Tenerife, before going back to a remote AirBnB with two strangers in the mountains miles from where he was staying.
His last known location was the following day in the mountains, after he is said to have called his friend Lucy on one per cent phone battery.
But despite realising the risks, the raver in Ibiza who ended up in the mountains said: “It was a fantastic night. I’d do it again.”
The horror of what happened after the NRG festival in Tenerife was clearly not putting off the other party-goers at this NRG rave.
They were packed in like sardines, some with fans to deal with the sweaty temperatures, to dance to the DJ sets. Others sat down around the side, clearly exhausted but unwilling to go home.
“I need to sit down for a bit but will just do some more coke so I can keep going”, one said. “I’m here for a party, I’m not going home now.”
Elsewhere, up on a balcony overlooking the dance scene below, a young, scantily-clad woman stumbled up to us without any friends in sight to ask if we knew anyone who could sort her out with ecstasy.
He probably took too much, and I heard he went off with strangers without his phone charged which was stupid. He got himself into trouble. You have to be careful.
NRG Ibiza partygoer
A dealer later bragged about a separate girl who approached him: “She was asking me if I had any coke to sell her. I did, but obviously I just said ‘only if I can come back and sniff it with you in your room’.”
This attitude to meeting random people to go home with, for sex or otherwise, was rife, with another raver saying: “These places are great. Shag whoever you want. Meet random sound people and go back after to do lines. Just go wild.”
And many seemed to dismiss Jay’s disappearance as something that wouldn’t happen to them.
One said: “It sounds like he just couldn’t handle your drugs. Everyone comes to events like this and does drugs but you have to be careful.
“He probably took too much, and I heard he went off with strangers without his phone charged which was stupid. He got himself into trouble. You have to be careful.”
Another said: “No idea what might have happened to the kid. He must’ve just gone off in a bad state and maybe with the wrong crowd. He left his friends which happens at events like these but it’s safer to stick with your group and look out for each other.”
The techno rave Jay went to hosted by NRG was the first to take place on the island of Tenerife and promised to be an “electrifying three-day weekender.”
But after raver Jay disappeared from the event, a more sinister side of the festival has been uncovered.
Partygoers have said there were “dark vibes” around the rave, with the energy “so wrong”.
NRG, standing for New Rave Generation, but is also a name for B Class party drug Naphyrone or NRG1.
The white powder, which is snorted or swallowed in wraps of paper, gives takers feelings of “euphoria, talkativeness” and “alertness”, according to drug information group Talk to Frank.
A video was released showing Jay with his black sunglasses on his head as he pushes his way through a crowd of spaced out partygoers.
He appears to be alone as he looks around the club with music thumbing and strobe lights around him.
The mysterious case of Jay Slater
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marked three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 – Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them – convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man – who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged – and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished – quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement”.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: “My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him – and then start from there.”
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk
Tickets to the NRG Tenerife event went on sale in January costing just over £250.
Organisers said there were already “over 2000” people on the ticket waiting list before they were officially released.
They are now facing heavy criticism on their Instagram account after they failed to post an appeal to find missing Jay to their 25,600 followers in the days after he vanished.
The NRG Instagram account released a video with a caption thanking party-goers for an “Unreal weekend” on the day Jay was reported missing.
One outraged party goer said : “The fact you haven’t even posted the boy who attended your festival is ridiculous knowing how many followers you have in Tenerife right now!!”
Another said: “Missing boy jaay who attended this festival.
“This should be all over you account???!!!!! (sic)”
And added: “Post about the missing 19 year old boy after he attended your festival?!?!”
The company released a statement about Jay’s disappearance five days later, on Friday (21st June), and said it had been supporting members of Jay’s family.
It said: “Despite the widespread coverage and hard work of the local authorities and volunteers involved in the search, at the time of posting Jay has not yet been found.
“That such a devastating situation has arisen has deeply affected us all.
“We have been able to give some practical support to the members of Jay’s family who have come to Tenerife in such difficult circumstances, and we are inspired by their resilience and determination.
Ravers can already sign up to NRG Tenerife Weekender 2025 with information about the lineupand presale due to be released soon.
The 19-year-old Brit had flown to Tenerife with some pals to attend the event which kicked off on the island on 14 June, with attendees enjoying beach, pool and boat parties as well as day and night raves.