The Last Dinner Party Address UK Club’s Discriminatory Screening Of Fans And Last-Minute Show Cancelation

Baroque-pop revivalists the Last Dinner Party were supposed to play a show at the Engine Shed in Lincolnshire, England last Saturday. Multiple male fans who were attending the show alone reported that they’d been screened discriminately before entering. Then, the show was canceled last minute, due to “a band member unexpectedly falling ill.”

A tweet that night from an account that’s now gone private reads: “Just arrived at the gig, been funnelled into a dark corner with other men, told I might be a pervert cus I’m alone and then taken into a room alone with a security guard where I was interrogated and searched. Feel sick.” Others responded with similar experiences: One fan said he “I got asked how long I had liked them for, and to name my favourite song,” while another said he “got whisked away, searched, asked condescending questions.” Then, the Last Dinner Party canceled the evening’s show, apparently after doors had already opened. The venue issued an apology for the canceled show on Twitter/X the following morning, but didn’t yet address the alleged fan screening until a separate statement a few hours later. The venue said they had carried out “a preliminary investigation” regarding the incident. Here’s the full statement:

We pride ourselves on and are committed to operating a safe, secure, inclusive, and welcoming venue for all our guests. We are aware of reports on social media that the entry procedure utilised at The Last Dinner Party on September 28th fell far short of our venue entry policy, which requires all attendees to be treated equally and be subject to the same entry requirements.

We have urgently carried out a preliminary investigation today, which indicates that after information was provided to our security team about incidents at a previous The Last Dinner Party gig, the venue management team made an ad-hoc change to our policy. Although the policy was changed with the right intentions, this change resulted in the unacceptable treatment of some guests, and The Engine Shed would like to fully apologise to anyone affected. We have instigated an independent investigation that will review all of the reports and will make recommendations on actions to be taken. These recommendations will be implemented by our Directors. As an urgent measure, we will also be implementing further staff training on our door entry policy to ensure that this cannot happen again.

Today, the Last Dinner Party issued a statement of their own, clarifying that “those policies were created and enforced by the venue at their own discretion.” And here’s that one in full:

We’ve been made aware of some security policies implemented at our show in Lincoln on Saturday, that have understandably left many of our fans feeling uncomfortable and disrespected.

We want to make it very clear that those policies were created and enforced by the venue at their own discretion, and were not made in consultation with us. They do not reflect our beliefs and would not have been implemented had we been made aware of them in advance. We understand the venue is currently conducting an urgent investigation into the reports surrounding the conditions of entry. Our shows are intended to be safe, welcoming spaces for everyone, which is something we deeply care about. Seeing inclusivity embraced by our fanbase is one of the best parts of performing live. The venue has since apologised, and assured us that measures are being taken to prevent this from happening again at future shows.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend our shows. We are appalled and disappointed that anyone was made to feel otherwise. We welcome The Engine Shed’s investigation and further staff training to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. The cancellation of our show in Lincoln was due to a sudden illness within the band that we had obviously not foreseen, we apologise to all of you that were in attendance.

Thanks again for all your support. It means more than you’ll ever know.

The Last Dinner Party also canceled their Cardiff show Sunday night. See the relevant posts below.