Whitby's Tomorrow's Ghosts Festival welcomes £55,000 funding

The Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival has confirmed it was successful in securing the cash from the Arts Council.

It follows the Government appearing to confuse the festival with a rival event, Whitby Goth Weekend, when announcing which groups had been awarded money.

The organisers of Whitby Goth Weekend, which has been running in the town since 1994, released a statement yesterday to say it was not the one which had bid for a share of the funding.

A spokesman for Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival, which has been taking place at Whitby Pavilion since 2018, said that news of the award was welcome.

The spokesman said: “Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival is excited and relieved to have received the Arts Council funding which will ensure the long-term future of the festival.

“The recent press statement from the Government has created some confusion when it was announced as ‘Whitby Gothic Festival’.

“To eliminate any confusion, we want to confirm that the funding was applied for by Absinthe Promotions as ‘Tomorrows Ghosts Festival’.

“While the festival happens alongside other events across the town, we have worked hard to differentiate from the previous promoters and have requested an amendment to the Government statement to avoid future confusion.

“Since 2018 we have been proud to work with Sheffield International Venues (SIV) and Scarborough Borough Council to deliver Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival at Whitby Pavilion.

“During this time the support from our festival-goers and local businesses in the town has been fantastic but like the whole events sector, the future of the festival was put under threat due to the ongoing pandemic.

“This funding secures the future of the festival which enables us to now plan and finalise the line-up for 2021.”

The festival is holding the Virtually Hallowe'en event this month with a preview of new film A Place Among the Dead followed by a special Q&A event with director, writer and actress, Juliet Landau.

The festival spokesman added: “The funding also allows us to continue to broaden the festival from music and markets to include a wider programme of film, theatre and special guests.

“We are also exploring new ways we can bring the festival to a wider audience in 2021 with this taking the form of a digital festival which will stream from Whitby Pavilion to reach a wider community of gothic music and film fans.”

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