It was another unmatched success for Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival this Halloween – the tentpole event holding court at Whitby Pavilion drew another sellout crowd to see The Mission, supported by heavyweight acts like the March Violets and Lol Tolhurst. DJs played alternative hits new and old into the small hours, and the long tradition of a music festival was renewed again after more than three decades of goths congregating in Whitby. Both TGF and Whitby Goth Weekend, the originators of this unique festival, will return in 2027 for another Halloween instalment where they’ll host events that draw in legions of black-clad fans of post-punk music.

The gigs however rarely get a look-in anywhere else – local media prefer to focus on the link-friendly photogenic attendees who roam the narrow streets in a variety of outfits that do more justice to a Comicon than a Goth Festival, a point I’ve made before – and you only have to scroll through Facebook to see the same comments appearing en masse…

This has been an issue since forever – but a couple of people have messaged me, concerned about one particularly offensive photo that has popped up. For those who don’t wish to see it, it shows a person dressed as a Nazi SS officer, brandishing a convincing firearm and menacing a pet dog on a busy street.

The first thing that popped into my mind was oh no, not again. Nearly ten years, I took a photo from a flat window of a cosplayer dressed as a werewolf, wearing a grey SS uniform and posing on the cobbles of Whitby Old Town. I reported it to North Yorkshire Police who did take my complaint seriously but I don’t believe ever caught up with them.

The second issue is the Nazi Bar Example. Now, this person might not hold rightwing views, might have decided to wear the uniform of the most despised regime in human history for shock value or because it reminds them of Call of Duty. What they have done is slightly desensitize people to seeing a Nazi uniform out and about. Normalised seeing symbols of hate, discrimination and war crime level mass murder on a sunny Saturday by the sea in England.

Each time it happens, the next time becomes easier. I’ve read the comments on Facebook, the well, actually’s on Reddit, everyone who shrugs it off as Halloween or whatabout the Swastika worn by the early punks including Siouxsie. People have been quite inured to this kind of behaviour already, it seems.

The complicating factor is that this display took place on the streets of Whitby, far from anything actually organised as a ‘goth event’. It could not be policed or managed in any way by anyone within the subculture – a symptom of a bigger issue where Whitby is dwarfed by a massive influx of visitors to a sprawling event that has no central management.

Yet this offensive picture appears in a Facebook post under the headline “favourite photos we took of people dressed up for Goth Weekend in Whitby” on a page with over half a million followers, and where every comment in an unfolding thread of rants is earning the page owners money. ‘Free speech’ on a hateful topic that wilfully misrepresents my subculture, harnessed to give kickbacks. Meanwhile, I tried to link to an external website about the cover photography for the debut album by Bauhaus, and Facebook’s automated purity filter immediately jumped in and deleted my link. Interesting comparative values there…

As the headline suggests, I have always maintained there are two sides to the Goth Weekend and certainly lean into my own cosplay habits! There are the live music events, huddled under the black parasol and bickering over scene drama since ’94. Hidebound lifelong goths committed to rolling out the black carpet for familiar faces either side of the stage and holding onto their holiday cottage like postpunk limpets!

Then, across the river, the Old Town heaving with a carnival-like atmosphere populated by people who seized on the freedom to wear what you want, to wear whatever they want – regardless of taste, decency or so-called socially held values, it seems. Separated geographically they nonetheless collide spectacularly over social media, and everyone else with any connection to Whitby is caught in the crossfire of this unabating argument. I am reminded of Jekyll and Hyde as the divide broadens and the personality split in this little Yorkshire town widens again. What occurs in the town simply does not relate to what occurs in the Pavilion, and vice versa – except what is associated clumsily online…

The UK’s ‘premier goth and alternative festival’ casts a long and wide shadow over the town, as well as the goth scene internationally, and we should all be concerned about what is festering in that shade – disturbing extremism is on the rise in many facets of society. Neither should we be blind to what casts that shadow too, and accept that harsh truths may emerge as we negotiate the difficult question of what should be done about Whitby and its Goth Weekends.

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