It’s official: The Vans Warped Tour is making a comeback. On Oct. 17, Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman confirmed that the festival will return in 2025 after a six-year hiatus to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Straying from its traditional format as a traveling “punk rock summer camp,” the 2025 iteration of Warped Tour will function as a pop-up festival taking place in just three cities over two days each. It’ll kick off in Washington, D.C. (June 14–15), make its way to Long Beach, Calif. (July 26–27), and then conclude in Orlando (Nov. 15–16). Should the three-city festival be a hit, Lyman said he’d consider adding additional stops to the tour in future years.
Prior to the festival’s hiatus, Lyman’s Warped Tour had been under scrutiny, as members of varying bands have been accused of sexual assault and misconduct, including with minors, at the shows.
Effectively launching the careers of pop-punk, pop-rock and alternative-rock mainstays like Blink-182, New Found Glory, Paramore, Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, Warped Tour has a rich legacy of giving up-and-coming bands the platform to share their music and connect with fans across the continent. Genre outliers like the Black Eyed Peas and a 23-year-old, pre-fame Katy Perry have also taken the festival stage.
For many fans, an added benefit of Warped Tour was how closely they could interact with their favorite artists. There was a real possibility that they’d be able to snap some pictures and chat with lead singers at the merch booth if they waited around long enough. Hanging out with the band privately after the festival wrapped wasn’t off the table either — though some of those interactions have fueled the misconduct accusations.
“Warped Tour is like everywhere — there’s creeps and there’s good people too. And there’s plenty of people who just need help to do the right thing more often,” Kira-Lynn Ferderber, the founder of Safer Scenes, a bystander intervention workshop that was brought to Warped Tour in 2017, told Yahoo Entertainment. The organization educated attendees on how to safely interrupt all forms of harassment.
In 2015, Lyman told writer and musician Paul Adler that while Warped Tour does not “tolerate artists who do wrong,” they’ll “be dealt with when there is proof.” He doubled down on this stance in a 2017 interview with Billboard, during which he attributed sexual misconduct to being “part of the culture.” In the wake of these allegations, Lyman partnered with the now-defunct nonprofit known as A Voice for the Innocent to educate bands on Warped Tour on how to “handle themselves” on the road, as well as provide a space for those who’ve been affected by sexual violence to share their stories.
On Oct. 18, Lyman came under fire once again. The official X account for Warped Tour engaged with Falling in Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke, who’s previously been accused of sexual assault.
Ronald Radke, our king…you dropped this 👑
— Vans Warped Tour (@VansWarpedTour) October 18, 2024
Lyman and a representative for the Vans Warped Tour did not immediately respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
Ahead of Warped Tour in 2017, Ferderber connected with Shawna Potter, the lead singer of hardcore punk band War on Women, after learning she wanted to spotlight feminist resources on tour. Ferderber joined forces with War on Women to not only educate attendees but also support survivors of sexual violence at each tour date.
“I heard plenty of stories of sexual violence at the tour dates, which is common unfortunately at live events in every genre,” Ferderber said. “What’s an extra bummer about Warped Tour and other alt spaces is that the sexist bros have convinced themselves and their fans that they’re somehow being punk and edgy by hating women. It’s actually so mainstream and boring, but it’s being sold as rebellion.”
Mariel Loveland fronted the pop-rock band Candy Hearts from 2009–17. They played Warped Tour in 2015.
“My experience as a woman on Warped Tour was really difficult,” Loveland, who is now the lead singer of the band Best Ex, told Yahoo. “There was a definite culture — not just on Warped but on any of those pop punk tours — to shut up and not make a fuss about anything. Be pleasant, be grateful, be happy, even if your tour mate decides to sexually harass you, call you a slut or grab your butt. Even if men verbally abuse you or treat you differently than your male tour mates.”
Playing Warped Tour was “a dream come true” for Loveland, but she thinks the criticism the festival’s getting for failing to protect female attendees and artists is warranted.
“At the time I was on Warped, I watched bands openly talk about how they couldn’t hire women or have women on their bus because it would make their partners uncomfortable,” she said. “If your behavior around women makes your partner uncomfortable, don’t you think that’s a huge issue? This was normal.”
Theo Kogan performed on Warped Tour in 1999 and 2000 with her punk-rock band Lunachicks. While she felt respected by all of the bands she interacted with, Kogan told Yahoo that she recalls both years being “very heavy on the testosterone” and “predominantly male.”
“The way some of the male/masc bands/performers related to their young femme/female fans at the time was extremely unsavory,” she said. Flashing their breasts and throwing their bras on stage were among the requests these bands made, according to Kogan. “It was pretty accepted by the men in charge there, and no one cared to stop it.”
Kogan hopes festivals like Warped Tour encourage both bands and male attendees to be respectful.
“I am sick and tired of how much women are told to protect themselves, to be careful, to dress this way or that to avoid harassment,” she said. “Boys and men need to be taught and forced to be respectful to women/femmes. They need to know it’s not OK to grab people’s bodies in the pit and when they are stage diving and crowd surfing.”
Ferderber has not been invited back to Warped Tour yet, but she thinks bystander intervention workshops should continue to be available at live shows, including Warped Tour.
“I’m sure there are also young women from the next generation based in all the cities Warped is going to next summer, and I hope they feel safe in their scenes and can be part of creating inclusive cultures at shows,” she said. “We really needed it in 2017, and we will need it again in 2025, I know for sure.”
For a safer space to be created, Loveland urges male bandmates to do their part.
“Men in bands need to lead the way. They need to not stand around, twiddle their thumbs and shut their mouth when they see inappropriate behavior,” she said. “The most punk rock thing you can do is say, ‘I don’t care if we’re going to lose money or lose fans, we’re not going to tolerate this type of harmful behavior.’ I made that decision for myself years ago, and I urge my peers to do the same.”
Leave a Comment