The present article proposes to explore and analyze, from the geographer’s point of view, the illegal, festive and freedom dimensions of the night through the study of free party and sound system movements. These two “counter-cultural” movements appeared in Europe in the early 1990s for the first, and in the 1940s in Jamaica for the second, before spreading throughout the world. They share ephemeral and regular territories where a large part of the major rules of the dominant society in terms of festivity (selection at the entrance, entry fee, schedules and dress code imposed, music calibrated, self-censorship or supervision political messages disseminated, submission to the legislation on drugs, among them ...) are disowned and replaced by alternative practices (barter, freedom and free entry and exit, no recommendation of the style of dress, dissemination of messages committed policies, use of psychotropic drugs ...). The appropriation of these self-managed spaces will be studied through the confrontation of many interviews of historical figures and current activists of the sound system scene (Jamaican, English and French) and free party, with the results of a major survey conducted among users of these autonomous territories. Our goal is to identify in a detailed way, and over time, the socio-cultural and territorial practices at work in these places and the conflicts (political, police and judicial) that they can provoke.