AFTER 30 YEARS, CAN WHITBY COPE?

Recently, I uploaded a picture of myself and some friends on our recent holiday during Whitby Goth Weekend (WGW) at the end of April. We sat on a bench near the whale bones, enjoying the spring sunshine. Dressed in black, we all smiled at the camera. A friend commented that it was nice to see some real goths in Whitby.

The comment was prompted by the fact that the town during WGW gets packed to the point of getting crushed in some parts. However, there are a lot of people who go who aren’t actually goths and never attend a single goth event. Concerns have been raised for a long time about the people who come to Whitby during the festival and how the town’s infrastructure is struggling to cope. Often, the majority of people arriving on Saturday are not actually goths.

HOW WHITBY GOTH WEEKEND BEGAN

Firstly, let me enlighten you with as brief and drama-free (as possible) history of the Whitby Goth Weekend.

Thirty years ago, Jo Hampshire advertised in the NME, asking if any goths wanted to meet in Whitby. An estimated 200 goths turned up, and the festival grew from there to a bi-annual event that fell around springtime and the closest date to Halloween in Autumn.

Of course, the town is associated with gothic literature. It was one of Bram Stoker’s writing locations when he penned Dracula…