List of gothic festivals

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List of gothic festivals
Castle Party 2008 09.jpg Castle Party 2008 13.jpg
2014 WGT 332 Violet Tears.jpg
General Information
Related genres Gothic rock, gothic metal, dark wave, industrial music, cybergoth
LocationWorldwide
Related events Concert tour, music festival, rock festival, heavy metal festival, electronic dance music festival, technoparade, teknival
Related topics Goth subculture, goth fashion

The following is an incomplete list of gothic festivals, which encapsulates music festivals focused on gothic music. Goth festivals may feature genres such as gothic rock and gothic metal, as well as industrial music. The festivals also tend to feature aspects of the Goth subculture, such as fans and bands in goth fashion. Goth is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late-1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes. [1] The genre itself was defined as a separate movement from post-punk due to its darker music accompanied by introspective and romantic lyrics. Gothic rock then gave rise to a broader subculture that included clubs, fashion and publications in the 1980s.

Contents

Festivals

NameYears activeLocationNotesPicture
Wave-Gotik-Treffen 1987–present Leipzig, Germany One of the largest Gothic festivals in the world. A four-day event covering most of the city of Leipzig, Germany. Wgt 05 agra vorplatz.jpg
Annual Gothic Cruise 1989–presentFlorida, with one offsThis yearly weeklong event featuring bands across the many subcultures of the goth genre. Onboard dj parties & private events throughout the event. Must be 18 or over to attend private events. Food, drinks, and cabins included in base pricing.
Whitby Goth Weekend 1994– present Whitby, North Yorkshire, England Twice-yearly goth music festival. Screaming Banshee Aircrew WGW April 2005.jpg
Castle Party 1994–present Poland Above the town Bolków stand the ruins of Bolków Castle, built in the 13th century. Devastated in the Thirty Years' War it became a property of Grüssau Abbey in 1703, though restoration efforts did not begin until 1905. Since 1997 the ruin is the site of the annual "Castle Party" Gothic rock festival. First three editions were on Grodziec Castle. Smialek Castle Party 2012 0 14.jpg
Convergence 1995–present North America Annual net.goth party run by and for members of the alt.gothic and alt.gothic.fashion newsgroup, and other related Usenet newsgroups. Events at Convergence typically included live bands and club nights, bazaars, fashion, art shows, panels, and tours of goth-themed locales in the host city. In recent years, however, the festival aspects of this event have been stripped away leaving the event transformed into a meet-up for old friends from past Convergences to get-together. Convergence Goth festival.jpg
Dark Storm Festival1997–present Germany One day festival on Christmas Day, city hall of Chemnitz. [2] Dod darkstorm.jpg
Infest 1998–present Bradford, England An annual festival featuring a mixture of electronic, industrial and gothic music. The festival features club/DJ events, live concerts from established international artists & new bands to the scene, both clothes & music stalls. Marsheaux 2008 Infest 2.jpg
Bats Day in the Fun Park 1999– present Anaheim, United States Started in August 1999 as a joint effort between the promoters of the goth/industrial and deathrock clubs Absynthe and Release the Bats. It has become an annual three-day event.
M'era Luna Festival 2000–present Germany A festival of goth, metal and industrial music. It is held annually on the second weekend of every August, in Hildesheim, Germany. Lacuna Coil Mera luna 2005.jpg
Children of Night: Black Soviet 2000–present Ukraine A festival of goth, metal and industrial music. The largest on Ukraine and in the CIS festival of gothic/dark/electro music and art. Now a journey on a festival became annual tradition of admirers of gothic/dark/electro aesthetics from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other former Soviet Union countries. Annually passes in September in Kyiv, Ukraine. Festival detinochi chornarada4 2007 visitors club.JPG
Lumous Gothic Festival 2001–2020 Finland Commonly known as Lumous, was the largest festival dedicated to the goth subculture in Finland and the northernmost Gothic festival in the world. covering musical genres such as gothic rock, deathrock, industrial, EBM and neofolk.
Reverence2003–2009 Madison, United States An electronic music festival. Featuring primarily aggrotech, electro-industrial and synthpop bands, it has also included other electronic dance music genres as well.
Summer Darkness2003–2013 Utrecht, Netherlands Acts perform in various clubs throughout the city of Utrecht. The festival was a joint venture by Cybercase, Tivoli (Utrecht), EKKO and Mojo until EKKO made the decision in 2009 to quit. Summer Darkness.jpg
Soul Noir:Festival of the Dark Arts 2017 – present Dublin,Ireland A Dublin based festival founded to celebrate all things Gothic, underground and macabre.
Original Soul Noir poster by Shota Kotake SoulNoirposter.jpg
Original Soul Noir poster by Shota Kotake
Eccentrik 2004–2009 Raleigh, United States A three-day industrial and goth music festival. Started in October 2004, Eccentrik features various musical styles including deathrock, gothabilly, industrial, gothic rock, psychobilly, post-punk, synthpop and other related genres. [3]
Lima Gothic Wave Festival2004–present Lima, Peru An event that brings together the Peruvian and Latin American Gothic subculture. [4]
Amphi Festival 2005–present Germany A two-day festival of dark music. It is held annually on the third weekend of July, in Cologne, Germany. Blutengel6.JPG
Blacksun Festival 2005–2007 New Haven, United States Was created in 2005 is a three-day industrial and goth music international festival.
Prague Gothic Treffen2006–present Prague, Czech Republic Two-day festival of goth rock, EBM, darkwave, coldwave, synth and postpunk, DJs and picnic based in Prague clubs. PGT is held by a local goth webzine.
Darkland Fire 2008–present Rakvere, Estonia The Neofolk/Dark folk /Industrial Music Festival DARKLAND FIRE. [5]
Sinner's Day festival2009–presentBelgiumSinner's Day festival is one of Europe's New Wave/EBM/Goth festivals and consists of both a Summer and a Winter edition. The Summer edition is held annually during the last weekend of June in Ostend, Belgium, the Winter edition is held annually during the last weekend of October, Belgium. https://sinnersday.com/ Sinner's Day 2021.jpg
Dark Bombastic Evening2009–present Romania Festival spanning several days in Ryma, Alba Iulia, Romania. [6]
ENTREMURALHAS 2010–present Portugal It's Portugal's biggest goth and industrial music festival. It is held annually on the last weekend of every August, in Leiria, Portugal. CASTELO DE LEIRIA.jpg
Castrum Nigra2011–present Brodenbach, Germany One day festival within the complete castle Ehrenburg (Brodenbach) featuring a mixture of electronic, industrial and gothic music. The festival features DJ and club events, artists and performances. [7]
Dark Munich Festival2012–2015 Munich, Germany Insolvent. [8]
Runes & Men2012–2016 Leipzig, Germany Two day neofolk festival. [9]
San La Muerte Festival2012, 2015–present Austin, United States Texas-based music festival for goth, deathrock, and dark punk musicians from across the world. [10]
Alt-Fest 2014 England A crowd-sourced alternative music and lifestyle festival, intended to run from 2014 onwards at Boughton Estate, Kettering, England. [11] The inaugural festival promised six stages and 180 bands, but instead, the event was cancelled due to lack of funding, with the controlling company consequently going into liquidation. [12]
Autumn Moon Festival 2015–present Hamelin, Germany Two day Gothic festival in October. [13]
SPECIES2015–present County Leitrim, Ireland Annual Gothic arts and culture gathering, a grass roots collaborative festival run by its creative contributors. [14] Music from a diverse array of Ireland's dark, Gothic and Industrial DJs with live bands and Performances, Gothic Décor, Art Installations, Live painting, Gothic market and camping over a span of two nights and three days. Speciesteaparty.jpg
Goth City 2016–2023 Leeds, England A Leeds-based Goth festival over two weeks from 11 – 26 November.
Subkultfestivalen2016–present Trollhättan, Sweden Two-day culture festival with a focus on subcultures like goth, synth, postpunk, indie, metal, punk, emo, lolita, industrial & electronica. Scarlet performing at Subkult 2019.jpg
Dark Side of the Con2017 – present New York Metro, United States A Celebration of the Darker Side of Popular Culture: Villains, Goth, Horror, Halloween Parsippany, NJ. [15]
Gothic Dark Wave Festival 2017 Tilloloy Castle, France A two-day festival with 22 bands, at a castle in the north of France. It took place on 19 and 20 August 2017. [16] The festival is unlikely to have a second edition. [17]
Darkside of Belgrade 2017–present Belgrade, Serbia One day festival featuring a mixture of electronic, industrial and gothic music. The festival features club/DJ events,live bands and performances
Deepland Festival2017–present São Paulo, Brazil Goth music event held by Brazilian alternative record label Deepland Records. [18]
Dark Malta Festival2018–present Gianpula, Malta Two-day festival featuring a mixture of EBM, industrial, gothic & Metal music. The festival features live bands, dj- & club-events. Darkmaltafestival2019.jpg
The Unconvention2021–present New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia Area, United States The Unconvention is a 3-day festival. Iselin, NJ. [19]
The Menagerie Oddities Market World Goth Day Festival2021–presentSan Francisco Bay Area, CaliforniaCalifornia's first World Goth Day Festival. Held in different cities around the Bay Area, this annual event features a curated dark art & oddities market, international bands and DJ's, performers, exhibits, and fashion.
Michael Garcia of The Reptile House performing on stage at The Menagerie's 2nd Annual World Goth Festival on the USS Hornet in Alameda, CA 2022 The Reptile House.jpg
Michael Garcia of The Reptile House performing on stage at The Menagerie's 2nd Annual World Goth Festival on the USS Hornet in Alameda, CA 2022

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goth subculture</span> Contemporary subculture

Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.

Gothic rock is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Cure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gothic fashion</span> Fashion of goth subculture

Gothic fashion is a clothing style marked by dark, mysterious, antiquated, homogeneous, and often genderless features. It is worn by members of the goth subculture. Typical gothic fashion includes dyed black hair, exotic hairstyles, dark lipstick and dark clothing. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner, dark nail polish and lipstick for a dramatic effect. Male goths use cosmetics at a higher rate than other men. Styles are often borrowed from the punk fashion and can also draw influence from Victorians and Elizabethan fashion. Goth fashion is sometimes confused with heavy metal fashion and emo fashion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AFI (band)</span> American rock band

AFI is an American rock band from Ukiah, California, formed in 1991. Since 1998, it consists of lead vocalist Davey Havok, drummer and backing vocalist Adam Carson, bassist, backing vocalist and keyboardist Hunter Burgan, and guitarist, backing vocalist and keyboardist Jade Puget. Havok and Carson are the sole remaining original members. Originally a hardcore punk band, they have since delved into many genres, starting with horror punk and following through post-hardcore and emo into alternative rock and gothic rock.

Dark wave is a music genre that emerged from the new wave and post-punk movement of the late 1970s. Dark wave compositions are largely based on minor key tonality and introspective lyrics and have been perceived as being dark, romantic and bleak, with an undertone of sorrow. The genre embraces a range of styles including cold wave, ethereal wave, gothic rock, neoclassical dark wave and neofolk.

Hot Topic, Inc. is an American fast-fashion company specializing in counterculture-related clothing and accessories, as well as licensed music. The stores are aimed towards an audience interested in rock music and video gaming, and most of their audience ranges from teens to young adults. Approximately 40% of Hot Topic's revenue comes from sales of licensed band T-shirts. Hot Topic often negotiates exclusive licensing arrangements with musical artists, movie studios, and graphic artists. The majority of the stores are located in regional shopping malls.

A rivethead or rivet head is a person associated with the industrial dance music scene. In stark contrast to the original industrial culture, whose performers and heterogeneous audience were sometimes referred to as "industrialists", the rivethead scene is a coherent youth culture closely linked to a discernible fashion style. The scene emerged in the late 1980s on the basis of electro-industrial, EBM, and industrial rock music. The associated dress style draws on military fashion and punk aesthetics with hints of fetish wear, mainly inspired by the scene's musical protagonists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Specimen (band)</span> British band

Specimen are a British band founded in the 1980s. Their music has been described as spanning many different genres of music, including glam, goth, punk and post-punk, and the band is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the goth subculture, both musically and stylistically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bela Lugosi's Dead</span> 1979 single by Bauhaus

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" is the debut single by the English post-punk band Bauhaus, released on 6 August 1979 on the Small Wonder label. It is often considered the first gothic rock record.

Gothic metal is a fusion genre combining the aggression of heavy metal with the dark atmospheres of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music. The genre originated during the early 1990s in the United Kingdom originally as an outgrowth of death-doom, a fusion of death metal and doom metal. Lyrics are generally dark and introspective with inspiration from gothic fiction as well as personal experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dark culture</span> Subculture

Dark culture, also called dark alternative scene, includes goth and dark wave culture, the dark neoclassical/dark ambient scene, parts of the post-industrial scene parts of neofolk and the early gothic metal scene. Dark culture's origin lies in followers of dark wave and independent music, but over the decades it has developed to a social network held together by a common concept of aesthetics, self-representation, and individualism. The musical preferences of the dark scene are characterized by a mix of styles ranging from futurism, electropop, early music, (neo-) classical, and folk music to punk rock, rock, techno and ambient music.

The Toronto goth scene, the cultural locus of the goth subculture in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the associated music and fashion scene, has distinct origins from goth scenes of other goth subcultural centres, such as the UK or Germany. Originally known as the "Batcavers", the term "goth" appeared only after 1988, when it was applied to the pre-existent subculture. Distinctive features included internationally recognized gothic and vampiric fashion store 'Siren', a goth-industrial bar named 'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar', and Forever Knight, a television series about an 800-year-old vampire living in Toronto. In Toronto, the goths did not seek to reject mainstream status, and achieved partial acceptance throughout the mid to late 1990s.

Bats Day in the Fun Park, also known as Bats Day, Goth Day, Goth Day at Disneyland, The Spooky Trip to Disneyland Resort, CA., Bats Day in the Park and Bats Day Out, started in August 1999 as a joint effort between the promoters of the goth, industrial, and deathrock clubs Absynthe and Release the Bats. It has become an annual three-day event taking place in Anaheim, CA, United States near Disneyland. In previous years, the events commenced on the weekend before Labor Day. Since about 2008, Bats Day event weekends have usually happened on the first or third weekend in May.

Rose Mortem is an American fashion designer, musician, model, and entrepreneur. Rose is most widely known for her dark romantic fashion stylings and as a member of the Gothic rock band The Awakening. She is a graduate of Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cauda Pavonis</span> English deathrock band

Cauda Pavonis are an English deathrock band founded in 1998, by Su Farr and Dave Wainwright. Originally conceived as a 'dark romantic' experience, Cauda Pavonis broke onto the UK goth circuit supporting acts such as Star Industry and Inkubus Sukkubus. At the outset Cauda Pavonis were noted for their consciously-minimalist synthesized melodies and their use of live drums. They were described by Mick Mercer in his book 21st Century Goth as a "Dark duo from UK with a bright future" and by Starvox as "The most old school sounding goth since Rozz Williams hung himself". Since then the line-up has grown and the band have appeared twice at the Whitby Gothic Weekend and the Wave-Gotik-Treffen. In 2003 and again in 2007, Cauda Pavonis were the focus of the ITV television programme, Magick Eve.

Natasha Scharf is an author, disc jockey, presenter and journalist best known for her work publicising gothic, rock, metal and progressive metal music and subcultures. Since 2019, she has been the Deputy Editor of Prog.

World Goth Day is observed annually on 22 May. The Official World Goth Day site defines it as "a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate its own being, and an opportunity to make its presence known to the rest of the world."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wednesday Mourning</span>

Wednesday Mourning is an American actress and model. She specializes in the Goth subculture and has been influential in goth fashion, as well as being the celebrity spokesmodel for Atelier Gothique and appearing as a model for the band My Chemical Romance's CD Welcome To The Black Parade. She was awarded 2010 Goth Day Model of the year and LA Weekly’s Goth Girl of the Week, and since 2012, Mourning has been a co-star on Oddities: San Francisco, a Science Channel program. Mourning is also curator of an esoteric bookstore, Orphic Vellum Books, the only one of its kind in the U.S. She has appeared in several publications including Gothic Beauty and Elle Magazine and is a writing contributor for Celtic Family Magazine.

References

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