Statement as we go into festival season

Statement – Safe Gigs for Women at Festivals and Gigs   From time to time, there are bands and artists who are accused or convicted of domestic abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or rape who have nevertheless been invited to play at a festival or event that SGFW has been invited to attend. Some are […]

The Safe Gigs for Women team emerged from December, very tired, disheveled but feeling positive after four weeks working around the country, speaking to gig goers at dates with The Levellers, Sean McGowan and Frank Turner, giving us amazing access to be able to talk directly to gig goers, and planning for what we do […]

With festival season well under way, I got an email from my friends at the White Ribbon Music Project inviting me to along to help them launch new guidelines at BoomTown Fair. These guidelines would concentrate on how festivals and gigs can be made safer for women. Being the founder of Safe Gigs for Women, […]

My Twitter time line has started filling with links like this, and with both the Isle of Wight and Download this week ahead, it’s fair to say, festival season has started. (If you’re off to Download, know that I wish I was going with you!) I love festivals. As such, I could devote a whole […]

Last Saturday, Grace Dent caused a bit of a stir on my Twitter timeline with this article. At first, I passed it off as clickbait. But on reflection, after reading the article again, I concluded that the point that Dent is very clumsily making is that feminism has bigger battles to fight. And I get […]

After the unfortunate harassment incident that led me to create Safe Gigs for Women, I was acutely aware that the band I had gone to see, Manic Street Preachers, would not have condoned such behaviour, so why did someone at one of their shows think this was appropriate? With its focus on music, it makes […]

Finally fed up with over 15 years of harassment at gigs, I hit breaking point. But it seems I was not alone. Sharing my experiences with other music fans – woman after woman has expressed their awful experiences of harassment at gigs. In the time between my last blog and this one, there have been […]

I have been going to gigs for about 20 years now and one band in particular has my love like no other. I’ve seen the Manic Street Preachers countless times. Dressed in animal print and drenched in glitter, I’ve traveled far and wide, and patiently the hours of queuing to get to the barrier. Obsessed? […]