Another Fest, Another Self-Inflicted Wound: CY Fest, Chaos, and the Cost of Not Getting It
Can we go longer than a few months without something in the punk ecosystem catching fire?
A fest gets announced. The lineup drops. People get excited. Plans get made. Tickets get bought. And then—someone in charge does something so avoidable and unnecessary, and so deeply rooted in the same tired crap that we all end up right back here again.
CY Fest is just the latest casualty. If you haven’t been watching the Nacho Corrupted timeline, you can watch how it unfolded HERE and dive more deeply into the substantial allegations with the feral_bonobos account and/or the hashtag: #PunkToo. While feral_bonobos helped bring attention to the problematic nature of the CY Fest promoter, when asked for a statement, they gave credit to Miss Erotic Rat and her IG account that has been working tirelessly to give a voice to victims of sexual assault in the LA Punk Scene, citing numerous accusations as well as police records, stemming back to long before the German #PunkToo hashtag was even created.
We’ve seen this before…Bands rapidly started bailing on the event to distance themselves from the mess.
Men can do better; so far, they’re choosing not to. Nacho, aka Ignacio Rodriguera, swept aside the allegations as untrue despite mounting accounts of his inappropriate behavior. As he announced his departure from the event, he included mentioning that he’d lawyered up. Collins of Punk in the Park/Brew Haha with his Trump donation fallout, opted to hire a crisis management team rather than own up and speak authentically… And when they consistently don’t know how to do better, well, this is why we can’t have nice things, like punk festivals.
The problem isn’t punk.
Historically, the genre invited so many different kinds of “misfits” into the fold, specifically as a safe space. Women can be in the front, they can yell just as loud and shred the guitar, drums, etc. just as skillfully, they can be (or should able to be…) in the same mosh pit and feel comfortable. For the most part, the problem isn’t the fans anyway.
Habak of Tijuana, MX, is one of the many bands that lost time and money on this—photo courtesy of Kin Moenich
The problem is specifically, men in positions of leadership/power who still don’t understand (or refuse to care), and in this case, the ones running events in this scene need to understand the importance of being accountable to the community they serve.
That community includes women, it includes kids, and it includes all the people (LGBTQ+) who are done navigating spaces that feel unsafe because someone at the top couldn’t be bothered to take responsibility.
Every time this happens, the fallout is the same.
Bands get put in impossible positions. Fans are left holding tickets to something that no longer feels good to attend. Then, finally, the broader scene takes another hit to its already fragile trust. The final step is to refund tickets, but what measures are taken to help the rapidly deteriorating trust?
Here’s the other part of this—the internet ain’t what it used to be.
Yes, it’s a cesspool. The manosphere is alive and festering, amplifying the worst instincts of the loudest, most insecure voices in the room. You’ll see it in the comments every time: the deflection, and minimization, the tired “separate the art from the artist” takes, the eye-roll at anyone asking for basic decency. Decrying “woke” as some sort of problem when deplorable behavior is being normalized or labeled “typical”.
I’m willing to give credit where it's due, and the internet also does another thing: it facilitates mass visibility and enables news to spread fast. Suddenly, the sort of behavior that used to get shoved aside as unpleasant conversation is out in the open for everyone to see and respond to.
Punk, at its core, has always been about calling out bullshit when you see it. Not protecting it. Not enabling it. Not shrugging it off because it’s inconvenient to deal with.
Dick Lucas of the Subhumans, the headliner of the fest, dropped off as soon as the allegations came to light. -photo courtesy of Kim Moenich
So when a fest starts to unravel because of the actions of the people running it, the conversation isn’t “why is everyone so sensitive now?” The conversation is: why is this still happening?
Why are we still watching the same preventable mistakes derail events that people actually care about?
It should not be the responsibility of women and younger fans to recalibrate their means of enjoying a punk show safely. They are put in positions where their comfort and willingness to show up are derailed because someone else couldn’t get their act together. Enough!
For a scene that prides itself on being different, we should not still be dealing with such painfully predictable behavior from the top.
It’s exhausting. It’s avoidable. And it’s costing the scene more than anyone wants to admit.
Every time this cycle repeats, a little more trust erodes. A few more people decide it’s not worth it. A few more “nice things” disappear before they ever really get a chance to exist.
CY Fest isn’t the first. It won’t be the last. Can it at least be a pivot point? Can we ever learn that if you want to build something in this scene—something lasting and respected—you don’t just book bands and sell tickets.
You have to show up with integrity, understand the community you’re operating in, and acknowledge the space you’re creating, because it really matters to the people in it.
Otherwise? We already know how this ends.
Editor’s note: This is an evolving situation and it’s worth noting some of the club shows are still happening, including those at the Regent Theater.
