Even now, adventurous early bats – sorry, birds – will be making the arduous journey to the North Yorkshire coast for Whitby Goth Festival, Spring 2025. Or should that be Whitby FOMO Festival? Like many more, I won’t be attending this year – for a myriad of causes including the significant cost and investment of energy. Nonetheless there is the most ambitious array of events in the town I’ve ever seen, that I definitely do want to signpost to attendees new and veteran!

Below are just a handful of the events or organisers vying for your attendance this weekend in Whitby. Click through to their event or ticket pages for more information! I must say I am in awe at the amount of live music events that have now sprung up, from the mighty Pavilion to the smallest rooms in pubs. This is a strong recommendation to join the Gothic North community on Facebook and peruse the Whitby Master Thread for ongoing event recommendations!

This is a pleasant reversal of the seeming decline I observed a couple of years back. Multiple artists and promoters are now charting their own course at the most recognizable event in the UK Goth calendar. I feel it’s a helpful counterweight to the scenic but arguably unscene carnival atmosphere in the streets, where – at the risk of coming across too gatekeeping – one’s outre outfit matters more than one’s musical taste!

It’s always a controversial observation, but in Whitby – for thirty years a rallying point for the national scene – it’s a conversation worth having. The debate will always rage online about appearance versus audio ‘credentials’ in goth, but this embittered blogger will always cite the gigs and clubs as the lifeblood of the scene for the other 50 weekends a year!

Indeed, I’m staving off my FOMO by looking ahead to July and another goth weekend – this time somewhere slightly more accessible to public transport and with marginally more economic accommdation! I’m excited to attend the inagural Deadinburgh Festival in July – let me know in the comments if you’re coming, or what you’re looking forward to in Whitby, or where else you’ll be getting your goth delights.

The calendar is stuffed for choice quite frankly – consider the equally long-lived but more bleepy Infest UK, now settled in Manchester. Or Bleak Midvinter in Sheffield, or Bats in the Attic in Morecambe, or Black Pilgrimage in Leeds or Halifax Goth Weekend in, err, Halifax. This however will pose an existential question for the wider goth scene very soon – with so many events bidding for bands, who will top the bill when reliable acts like Fields of the Nephilim, The Mission or The Damned are already locked into a festival appearance elsewhere?

Perhaps promoters will have no choice but to either spread their net more widely to international acts, or promote from within and finally allow bands to progress up and play higher slots. This could cause a seismic shift in the UK goth live scene – hopefully, for the better! See you at the festival soon…

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Vaughan Allen
Martin Belam

Claire Victoria
Mark Chisman