Boomtown seek to “blacklist” people from festival after “hate speech” against LGBTQIA+ community

Boomtown Festival has said they will “blacklist” people from their festival after receiving “hate speech” comments to a post supporting the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Hampshire festival, which says it is a proud supporter of “the diverse communities” that makes their event come to life, posted on June 1 to celebrate the start of Pride Month.

However, it appears that the post provoked a number of negative reactions, leading to the festival saying it will take decisive action against the people behind the “hateful” accounts.

There is zero tolerance of any type of hate speech at Boomtown.

We are taking steps to blacklist anyone we find spreading hateful messages from coming to the festival.

We want to make it very clear that anyone with this type of view is not welcome at Boomtown. pic.twitter.com/Y4W4NAZB8O

— Boomtown Festival (@BoomtownFair) June 7, 2024

“Recently, we encountered hateful comments on a post we shared celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community at the heart of Boomtown,” they wrote. “We are deeply proud of our beautiful LGBTQIA+ crews, artists, performers and citizens and we will wholeheartedly continue to celebrate the diverse communities that make our city come to life.”

“The kind of negativity we saw on Saturday goes against everything we stand for at Boomtown,” they continued. “We sincerely apologise to those who were targeted and to anyone and everyone who was affected. We were angered and saddened by the hateful comments. There’s no place for that here.”

“We have a zero tolerance on any type of hate speech and our team swiftly removed the offensive comments and blocked the accounts. Unfortunately, further comments required us to disable comments entirely to protect everyone.”

“We’ve also created a blacklist to prevent these individuals from spreading hate on our platforms. Where possible, we’ll be taking steps to prevent them from attending the festival now or in the future. We want to make it very clear than anyone with this type of view is not welcome at Boomtown,” they concluded.

The negativity appears to have been a reaction to the below Facebook post on June 1 which celebrated the start of Pride Month. Several comments from the post have been disabled.

Boomtown’s 2024 festival will take place from 7-11 August at the Matterley Estate in South Downs National Park near Winchester. The festival is known for maintaining a high level of secrecy around its lineup, right up until the days leading up to the event.

No names have yet been confirmed for this year’s event, with the festival’s website promising an array that “celebrates the infinite variety of music from around the globe”, including “the freshest post-punk band, dons of the reggae world, disco divas and afrobeat royalty”, as well as “the aficionados and the underground of electronic music”.

At last year’s Boomtown, which celebrated the festival’s 15th anniversary, the only act confirmed ahead of the event was The Prodigy, although other names on the bill eventually included Loyle Carner, Cypress Hill, Peaches and Sister Sledge.

The post Boomtown seek to “blacklist” people from festival after “hate speech” against LGBTQIA+ community appeared first on NME.