After a decade of annual Halloween parties, the organizers of the annual Ghost Ship have canceled this year’s music event at SVN West.
Each Ghost Ship invited musicians an artists to display their talents to thousands through an interactive experience bound together by a theme; this year’s was going to be Barco Fantasma. Tickets were already on sale for the event and organizers will be issuing refunds to those who purchased passes.
In 2016, a fire at an Oakland warehouse fire took the lives of 36 people; most of whom were members of their art and music community. The fire was labeled by the media as The Ghost Ship Fire. To avoid further negative thoughts about the incident, organizers changed the name of Ghost Ship to LoveBoat Halloween.
Organizers then elected to revert back to the event’s original name and underestimated the amount of negative feedback shared by the community at large.
It’s unclear if and how the event will proceed in 2019. Here are the concluding remarks from the organizer’s message announcing the cancellation.
We humbly apologize to those of you who made travel arrangements or plans to attend. We share your sadness because we won’t be able to enjoy the experience of building and hosting the best damn party in San Francisco. This wasn’t an easy choice but we feel it is the right one given the circumstances.
We encourage you to share your thoughts, wishes and feelings about this decision on our socials. Our community is far more important to us than any party, even one as amazing as Ghostship.
Thank you all for 10 years of incredible support.
