Image courtesy of Baxter Photography
It is Whitby week, as hordes of goths, punks, post-punks and those uncateogrized descend on the small North Yorkshire town for the biannual music festival. I’ll be heading over on Thursday to begin the drinking, dancing, and describing events for The Blogging Goth, of which there is an enjoyably bewildering array.
Thanks to the kind people at Absinthe Promotions, I’ll be taking in the bands at the Pavilion on Friday and Saturday night. In exchange, of course, I’ll be hosting the Q&A sessions with Ashley Thorpe of the animated film Borley Rectory and author Jonathan Rigby’s presentation entitled Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema.
During the day I’ll be perusing the shopping at the Bizarre Bazaar, the Dark Days market and the town itself… or dropping into the final Whitby Kustom Car Show… and live-streaming the charity football match El Gothico… or taking in the sights of the Illuminated Abbey (15% off for wristband holders from Tomorrow’s Ghosts)… not to mention the live music available from Gothtown and the Official Fringe.
If I feel brave I might even risk a trip to Old Town during the day, but the crowds usually defeat that initiative. I’ll also be speaking to a crew making an independent documentary film about the weekend, so if you’ve got a burning urge to convey your experiences of the festivities or the goth scene in general, why not be in touch?
I find myself wondering how to refer to the weekend however. We’re all going to Whitby, for Goth activities, over the Weekend. We’ve been calling it Whitby Goth Weekend for twenty years. However, WGW is currently only operating the Fringe events at the Abbey Wharf, and the Bizarre Bazaar.
The name itself is a trademark of the company Top Mum Promotions. Should we keep using it as a common term everyone recognizes – or is it time to distinguish the title of a separate event from the various activities taking place during a ‘festival’ that belongs to no one organizer? Let me have your thoughts below…
The Blogging Goth 
As WGW is trademarked it’s imho inapropriate to use the term without the owners consent, like Glastonbury or the like.
Of course anyone running goth events could use their own trademarked name and build up that name for 24 for every Vlad, Frank and Morticia to use…
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You are legally correct, and that’s the direction other promoters are taking with names like Tomorrow’s Ghosts and Gothtown. But I guarantee every second-rate newspaper article about the weekend will call it Whitby Goth Weekend, regardless of the content.
So it’s also become a generic umbrella term, for a weekend we never thought WOULDN’T be WGW official.
An odd situation…
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A trademark can be overturned for £200 and a valid case. It could well be argued that “Whitby Gothic Weekend” (to use the original name) is a completely generic name, and the event has evolved to the point where no one promoter should have absolute rights to that name, and that instead it should be available to use for anyone running anything connected to the dark alternative scene in Whitby on the dates set by the Pavilion’s operators for the main festival. If it remains a trademark then possibly the name should become property of Whitby Town Council or Scarborough Borough council, with event promoters then paying a small fee to license the use of it?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trade-marks-invalidation/trade-marks-invalidation
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Next year, when the two events go to their own separate weekends we will once again refer to the Top Mum weekend as Whitby Goth Weekend. Not sure you can really take much from this Octobers weekend after all the upheaval over the summer.
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It’s a weekend in Whitby which is organised by, run for and attended by goths. It seems natural that it would be referred to as Whitby Goth Weekend. Legally, a trademark is a trademark I suppose but to attempt to continue to retain ownership of a term which is so generic, would take a lot of time and energy, which could perhaps be used more productively elsewhere. I guess its all about priorities 😉
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Good answer! 👍
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You’re a splitter Sinister, going wherever you can get your little brown nose in for free. You should be ashamed of yourself.
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1. What other event is there to go to?
2. Don’t sound like I’m much welcome there if there was anything.
3. I’m hosting some events for the current Pavilion promoter so it ain’t free.
4. Who gives a fuck what you think?
Cheers!
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1. Plenty
2. I have no idea what you’re on about
3. And this is better because?
4. Doesn’t matter.
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Alright genius, what have I split off from then? You clearly represent some other promoter’s event and if your colleagues feel the same I wouldn’t be welcome there would I?
I’m helping out at an event I’m interested in and getting access as an result. And you clearly give a fuck as well. So tell me what’s bothering you.
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