uk rave flyers started in late 1987 or early 1988, about the time when computer software such as Photoshop became available on PCs and Macs for use with scanners - this allowed great eclecticism, with images from a wide variety of historical cultural commercial geographical & artistic sources - the style and content of the classic early 90's flyers sometimes reflected the psychedelic art of late 60s (eg the idealism and the spiritual elements) but they rapidly developed a bold and beautiful style of their own, as well as incorporating s/f stuff (UFOs aliens etc), fractal designs, contemporary comix styles, and overt drug references (smileys, mushshrooms, and lots of "E"s)

flyers for regular club evenings (rather than big one-off events) were often humourous satirical or controversial, with caricatures of contemporary media personalities, politicians, sporting idols etc - different clubs fostered different styles of music, each with their associated flyer styles (trance, techno, hip hop, garage...) - increasing commercialisation of the dance scene resulted in greater use of pinups & soft porn to attract attention - dance music is now a major part of mainstream entertainment and many flyers are used as much to sell CDs and clothing as to publicise events

some of the more collectable UK flyers are Amnesia House, Biology, Dreamscape, Eclipse, Energy, Fantazia, Genesis, Jungle Fever, Hacienda, Helter Skelter, Perception, Quest, Raindance, Spectrum, Sterns, Sunrise, Time, Universe, World Dance

for information on flyer values, check out the  UK Rave Flyers Price Guide

for more info on flyers and their history check out Simon Parkin's Visual Energy