It is all to do with the Whitby Spa Pavilion which has been at the heart of the main WGW events organised by TopMum. TopMum is essentially Jo Hampshire, the person who founded the goth weekends in 1994 and has largely been responsible for organising them ever since. Bookings for the Spa Pavilion are controlled by Sheffield International Venues (SIV) and as far as I can tell they have barred TopMum from having further events there despite apparently the goth events being the most profitable bookings for them. Jo Hampshire on her Facebook page claims this is because she raised a safety issue with them. I've a feeling there may be more to it than this and I think there has been some suggestions of poor management by Jo and her team. But whatever is the truth of the matter, Jo is understandably extremely gutted and feels she has been very badly treated.

Anyway SIV in association with the Scarborough Tourism Bureau have confirmed that they have accepted bookings for goth events from another promoter, Absinthe Promotions. On their website they have announced a Gothic and Music Festival called "Tomorrow's Ghosts" at the Spa Pavilion for the same dates as TopMum have for this October. So for those going to that event there should be no dilemma about dates at least.

However for 2019, Absinthe have secured the dates Topmum would have had (the last weekend in April) and TopMum have evidently decided to promote different dates (two weeks earlier in the case of April). So for the weekend before Easter we will have Topmum without anything in the Pavilion (but traders in other venues) and for the weekend after Easter, Absinthe will have bands at the Pavilion and probably traders too (those who are not loyal to Topmum or do both events!).

So what do we do? I feel inclined to remain faithful to Jo Hampshire (our group doesn't normally have an interest in the bands at the Spa anyway). Having two goth events so close together will inevitably split the numbers attending, the question being: will the majority remain loyal to Jo or will they go for the bands? There is a lot of support for Jo on her Facebook page and there is also a huge reaction in support of Jo on the Facebook page for Whitby Pavilion (see the post dated 8th June and the very many replies to it). But though there is a undoubtedly a lot of support for Jo, will that be enough to prevent the weekends that she has chosen become too diluted? I don't think we can know before the event.

I would really appreciate the views of anyone who might be (or had been) contemplating joining our Rose's@WGW next April. Please email me or use the Contact Form here.

For the time being at least I think we should we support Jo, and I am planning for our usual four nights at Discovery Accommodation to be Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th (leaving Monday) April 2019. However if nearer the time it appears that I might have made the wrong choice and everyone in our group agrees, then I might change our dates accordingly. Please bear this possibility in mind if you are not flexible about dates when making a booking.