A Voice for the Innocent and Warped Tour Launch “Save Our Scene”

I'm glad this is happening. I'm hoping the workshops will be mandatory for bands on the tour?

 

Great to see them taking the initiative! Of course, would be nicer if they booted Falling in Reverse off this tour...

(Full disclosure: bought my tickets like 30 mins ago, riding the Hypocrite Train.)

 

Good initiative, hopefully the Warped Tour will progressively become a safer place.

 

I think this is awesome. At the same time I can't help but also feel this is a bit of "Look what we're doing! See we care! But we're also going to continue to let those creepy bands play on tour"

But you know what Im glad at least they're trying to educate.

 

This is awesome! It does feel a little weird to be doing this with FIR on the tour, but I guess something is better than nothing when it comes to education on sexual assault.

 

Yeahhh when you have Falling In Reverse as the very first band on your line-up, anything like this is just going to feel disingenuous.

 

I honestly had no idea who that guy was or that band, and after watching 45 seconds of three different videos and reading the reports of what he's been arrested for so far it's safe to say he seems like a real piece of work. Definitely weird that they're having them headline while running this but I'm glad they're having it this year, especially after the Johnny Craig nonsense last year.

 

This is a step in the right direction, I can't argue that, but it just feels a bit disingenuous given that FIR is headlining. Hopefully I'm wrong

 

I don't think it's genuine at all, I still think that Warped will have bands like FIR on the tour despite what they do, it's all about the money or maybe I'm being a pessimist. We'll see.

 

It's something but it's not enough for me to want to support Warped tour at all

 

After recent events, I hope Story So Far will have to go to this.

 

Hopefully ALL bands are required to do this... but yeah it does feel a little less than genuine with Falling in Reverse headlining. Better than nothing I guess.

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure how to respond and there's probably a misunderstanding/miscommunication here. But to me it seems like it's not being realized that a non-profit is trying to help make Warped better? I don't see what's not genuine about that part, at the least. Just trying to understand. I'm fully aware that the line-up and Kevin's attitude last year about this is/was a problem.

But I'm not sure how much the organization can do or if they have any influence over the line up. I'd rather have a group try to help Warped than not at all. I know people say things like "burn the scene/Warped down" but that's not gonna happen, so I'd rather organizations like AVFTI get involved and try to make a positive difference. I would hope they'd at least have discussions about the line-up and how that affects the situation, but I don't really know much about them.

 

@Cola. @cybele See my above post. Just wondering what people's thoughts are.

 

I have absolutely nothing against the non-profit. Admittedly, I haven't explored much about their mission or what they're involved in so I can't speak for their participation in this. I have no reason to doubt their sincerity.

My issue lies more so with Warped Tour itself. To have bands like Falling In Reverse, with Ronnie Radke who has had multiple claims of violence, accessory to murder, and domestic assault against him, on the line-up at all is what bothers me. It's 2016. Between his jail sentence, his mic-throwing incident, and his domestic abuse problems, it just really rubs me the wrong way for the tour to be touting their association with the non-profit as this magical solution.

Even more, I feel like it's difficult for me to accept this when Warped Tour is talking exclusively about their involvement with non-profits and their support for social causes while leaving out their involvement with enabling Front Porch Step to perform well after his accusations had come to light. It's that sort of discrepancy that makes it feel disingenuous to me. Like, is there going to be any backlash now for Parker Cannon and his most recent fan-kicking incident? I doubt it. To me, at least on the surface, this just seems like a way to save face.

With all this said? I would love to proven wrong and to have Lyman and Warped turn over a new leaf. It'd be great to have some real conversations and cultural shifts coming from this. I just have trouble trusting the situation after everything that's happened in recent years.

 

Yeah I have the same issues with Warped and I agree that it's hard to trust them. But I'm not sure if it's about trying to save face, as the same organization were actually on Warped last year when it was all happening, even though it was for a couple of dates and not for the whole tour like they are doing this year.

Hopefully it brings about positive change. I can only hope that at the very least, a discussion about the line-up has been had. Again, not sure what exactly AVFTI will be doing at the tour besides workshops, and how much else they can do behind the scenes, but I am glad this is happening.

 

I don't want this to be forgotten about so I'm posting this link here.

AVFTI are having a fundraiser right now.

https://www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/fans-and-bands-unite-to-reduce-sex-crimes--2

It explains exactly what the non-profit wants to do, and how they want to achieve it. It's more information than the blog in the OP.

Thanks

 

Awesome!

 

Hey guys, Mark here from A Voice for the Innocent. Just wanted to applaud the conversation you've got going here, important points being made. Thanks lightning13 for posting the link with more details, hopefully that makes it easier for people to see what we're all about.

AVFTI has been working really hard to get this off the ground, and I can tell you as an insider that Warped has been important to making Save Our Scene more than a pipe dream. We're really small as far as non-profits go, and they've stepped up, opening doors in a big way so we can get our workshop in front of bands and get our message out to fans.

This whole thing started because Kevin wanted to make things better. He's not in the dark when it comes to the criticism of him, his tour and the controversy surrounding their decisions. TBH I was skeptical when I first met him, like what kind of PR is this guy looking for? That's not us, our mission is to help victims of rape and sex abuse tell their stories anonymously, and find resources to take steps to improve their situations, or their life after sex crimes. But as we were following the controversy we saw Kevin ask for help. He reached out a hand, so we hit him up with a plan we had high hopes would make a big impact. We fully believe one of the cornerstones of fighting rape culture is simply that people don't get it. So when a few of us got the chance to sit down with Kevin and some of his inner circle, we thought "Worst case is we get to have a genuine conversation, and at least educate him on a few points." I was surprised to hear some of the first words he said to us: "I'm not the guy to handle this. I need help from someone who knows more about this." It's not very often somebody at his level just flat out admits when they're in over their head.

We laid out a comprehensive point by point plan and told him Warped was the place to pilot it. Nobody else in the music scene is doing this, and they do have a history of pioneering connections between their fanbase and non-profits. For as much grief the decisions of Warped has caused (yeah, we definitely notice it) Kevin and his team are at least acknowledging that things need to change. And like some of you said, it's not enough. I completely agree. But that's the thing AVFTI deals with daily, it's never enough. There are never enough people talking about rape, saying it's not OK. There's never enough money being spent to help victims, or enough sympathetic strangers willing to help out that girl getting harassed in the bar. There's never enough time in the day for me to write letters back to the guy who was hurt by his girlfriend but can't tell his friends because they'll look down on him, or write blog posts to tell that Freshman girl that things get better, that she's not alone. It's daunting, and sometimes it's really hard.

But then I see threads like this, and I remember that our mission is solid and people really do care. We're coming at this will full hearts and a proven strategy. No matter how big the mountain seems we're climbing it, and Warped has worked with us to make sure we've got what we need to keep going. We need people to start talking, even if it is to say "Do more." We all need to do more, even Warped Tour, and I hope you all will join me and the rest of AVFTI in those efforts. Hit up www.saveourscene.org if you have any questions. Or feel free to keep this thread going. I'm here to answer your concerns and keep talking about the victims. That's why we're really here, to help them.

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Our website is AVFTI.org as well, in case you or someone you know has been affected by sex crimes. You can post anonymously if you want, and there are people who know what your'e going through that want to listen.