It’s not a secret. For more than a decade, Warped Tour has been synonymous with predatory behavior. by Megan Seling Yesterday Rolling Stone broke the news: Vans Warped Tour is returning in 2025. The festival, which was founded in 1995 and made its last cross-country tour in 2018, will pop up for two days each in Washington, D.C., Long Beach, California, and Orlando, Florida, next summer. The piece praises Warped Tour and its founder Kevin Lyman for fostering up-and-coming bands, maintaining lower ticket prices compared to similar festivals, and the organization’s “strong sense of community.” But one thing Rolling Stone fails to mention is Lyman’s staggering track record for booking and protecting musicians accused of (and in some cases charged with) sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence. It’s not a secret. For more than a decade, Warped Tour has been synonymous with predatory behavior. It’s a recurring topic on the humor website Hard Times, and it’s been written about and reported on by NPR, The Washington Post, and Flavorwire, among others. Still, Lyman didn’t seem to think there was a problem. In a 2017 interview with Billboard, ahead of what was billed as Warped Tour’s final year, the outlet asked Lyman about the recent “issues of sexual harassment on the tour.” Lyman denied any misconduct happened on the tour itself and dismissed general inappropriate behavior as “part of the culture.” It is part of the culture, he’s not wrong. But what’s not being said is how much Warped Tour has contributed to that culture over the years. In 2009 Blood on the Dance Floor singer Dahvie Vanity (real name Jesus David Torres) was arrested for statutory rape. Still, the band played Warped in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, when asked about the bad press he was receiving for booking Blood on the Dance Floor, Lyman told music journalist Adam Bernard, “Yeah, you know what... controversy. Punk rock was controversial at one point. … I’m like well, you got a couple options. One, there are six other stages and three will have bands on them when that band will be playing. That’s one option, go see someone else. Or two, stay home. No one is twisting anyone’s arm to come to Warped Tour.” In 2019, the Huffington Post published a story in which 21 women accused Vanity of sexual assault. One woman told the publication that Vanity attacked her on the band’s tour bus during Warped Tour in 2011. She says he “exposed his penis and tried to remove her clothes,” and “hit her in the face” and cut her lip when she wouldn’t have sex with him. She was 16 years old. In a 2020 Business Insider story, Vanity denied all accusations, but sources told the outlet the FBI was investigating.  Pierce the Veil played Warped Tour in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2015. In 2017 a woman claimed on Twitter that she had a sexual relationship with the band’s drummer, Mike Fuentes, when she was 16 years old and he was 24. She says he knew how old she was, and they slept together after meeting up at Warped Tour in 2008. Another woman made similar claims about a month later, in December 2017. She said she met Fuentes at Warped Tour in 2008, and he asked her for nude photos when she was 15. Fuentes said in a statement, “I have never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in my life,” but left the band after the accusations became public. Lostprophet’s frontman Ian Watkins was accused of pedophilia as early as 2008. Cops ignored the claims for years. The band played Warped in 2012. Months later, Watkins was arrested and ultimately convicted of rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, three counts of sexual assault involving children, and six counts of possessing indecent images of children, among other things. He was sentenced to 29 years in prison. Singer Ronnie Radke has played Warped Tour multiple times, both in Escape the Fate and Falling in Reverse. Following Escape the Fate’s 2007 appearance, Radke spent two-and-a-half years in prison after being indicted on battery charges for being “present during an altercation in May of 2006 that ultimately led to the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Cook.”  In an April 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Radke admitted he was a “troublemaker during his early stints on Warped with Escape the Fate,” but Lyman welcomed Radke back to Warped Tour with his new band Falling in Reverse. The magazine wrote, “Lyman views himself as a mentor for performers like Radke. ‘I don’t judge what these kids are doing. I think I can guide them a little, help them miss some of the mistakes that maybe killed a few of my friends,’ he tells Rolling Stone.” In August 2012, Radke was arrested on charges of domestic violence and “charged with a misdemeanor count of corporal injury to his girlfriend.” Alternative Press reported that Radke pleaded “no contest” to “disturbing the peace,” and the domestic violence charge was dismissed. His girlfriend claimed on Twitter that it was a plea bargain and maintained he assaulted her. The band played Warped in 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2014, months after working as a Warped Tour Pit Reporter, Youtuber VeeOneEye (real name Jason Viohni), was accused of soliciting nude photographs from a minor in 2011 and raping a teenager in 2013. No charges were filed. In 2021, Daily Dot reported that a young woman named Ania Magliano-Wright posted a video on YouTube in 2014 claiming Viohni “got her drunk and slept with her—and then a message revealed that he wanted to get her drunk again.” She said she was 15 at the time and he was 20. According to the Daily Dot, more women shared similar stories publicly and with Magliano-Wright. The Daily Dot and Channel 4 News in the UK both reported that Viohni tweeted an unlisted response video to Magliano-Wright. According to Channel 4 News, Viohni said, “I’m not going to deny it. I’d just like the chance to explain myself.” He said his Mormon upbringing and drinking at the time contributed to his behavior. Austin Jones, another Youtuber, was accused of soliciting sexualized videos from minors in 2015. He was booked for Warped in 2015 but removed from the line-up weeks after an online petition made the rounds. Jones was arrested for child pornography in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019. The year Jones was arrested, Buzzfeed published a story in which another former Warped Tour artist claimed he told Lyman about Jones’s behavior before the news was made public. Lyman told Alternative Press at the time, “The word ‘pedophile’ is a strong, strong term. While the world can be screwed-up at times, there is a criteria for things. In the court of the Internet, people’s lives are being dragged out in front of the world with no due process. People throw very strong words out onto the Internet and when it is old news to them, it leaves a trail of destruction in other people’s lives. This country was built on the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Are we going to go back to this Salem witch hunt mentality? Communication needs to happen. I am actively encouraging that If women and girls feel they are being victimized, tell your parents, go to the police, talk to counselors.” Jones wasn’t the only booked artist to be removed from Warped Tour’s line-up in 2015. Front Porch Step (real name Jake McElfresh) canceled his festival appearance after being outed for allegedly exchanging nude photos with minors. Lyman quietly put McElfresh back on the schedule during a Warped Tour stop in Nashville. People were pissed. When news of McElfresh’s performance broke, Dan “Soupy” Campbell of the band the Wonder Years canceled his Warped Tour performance that day, and Haley Williams of Paramore tweeted, “I still believe in you, scene. Demand better bc you deserve better. No more excuses for boys just ‘being boys.’” I was working for the alt-weekly the Nashville Scene at the time, and when I reached out to Lyman for comment for a story, Lyman said McElfresh’s performance was “rehabilitation” and “part of the 8-month therapy program, with his counselors and all his supervisors here.”  The band Slaves were also removed from Warped’s 2015 lineup after the band’s singer Jonny Craig allegedly sexually harassed a merch sales employee. Afterward, Lyman told Billboard that he “proposed a plan to allow Craig and Slaves to return if they adhered to a series of caveats, such as attending a meeting with sexual-harassment and bullying counselors.” Other musicians on the tour opposed Lyman’s plan in a “town hall” vote, and Slaves did not return. In 2017, multiple women accused Craig of sexual assault, and the band’s label, Artery Recordings, dropped them from their roster.  The Australian band With Confidence played Warped Tour in 2016. The next year, guitarist Luke Rockets left the band after being accused of sending inappropriate messages to a 14-year-old girl. The band canceled the remaining dates of their US tour and released a statement saying, “This sort of abuse of power has been all too prevalent in today's industry. It is in these circumstances that people need to be completely stripped of that power and held accountable for their actions.”  Days later, the band’s vocalist, Jayden Seeley, was also accused of sexual misconduct when a fan claimed Seeley “pressured” her into sending him nude photos when she was 15 years old and he was 21. Shortly after, the band tweeted, “We are taking a step back from touring while we process and think on recent developments.” With Confidence, with Seeley still on bass/vocals, played Warped Tour the next summer, in 2018. What is it about Warped Tour that is so appealing to predatory and abusive men? And how, despite this damning pattern, can Lyman consistently take the stance that if there aren’t criminal charges, these accusations shouldn’t be taken seriously? According to RAINN, “only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police” for an endless list of reasons, from fear of retaliation to lack of faith that authorities would or could do anything to help. Lyman brushes off accusers’ claims as rumors and “witch hunts,” but look how often “rumors” turn out to be facts. Look how often men on Warped Tour who’ve been accused of predatory behavior turn out to be predators.  Warped Tour isn’t the only music festival to have problems—in 2022, I wrote about how When We Were Young’s nostalgia for early and mid-2000s emo and pop-punk was littered with issues, too—but before Warped ended in 2018, it was one of the longest-running and largest touring music festivals. It had a wider reach than so many other one-off events. In 2018 Lyman reported that the festival sold 540,688 tickets across 38 US cities. (For comparison, Coachella reportedly sold 161,838 tickets for two weekends in 2024.) But just as the culture is beginning to hold abusers accountable, we should hold those who enabled them accountable, too. Lyman has yet to take any responsibility for how Warped Tour—and so many of the musicians he’s personally vouched for—have contributed to a scene that so many music fans and even some performers have since condemned. Hayley Williams said in a 2020 interview with Vulture that the “pop-punk and emo scene in the early 2000s,” including the band’s time spent on Warped Tour in 2005 and 2006, was “toxic” and “brutally misogynistic.”  And now we’re supposed to, as Rolling Stone says, “lace up [our] Vans sneakers” and get stoked for Warped’s return? We could listen to Lyman, we could just “stay home.” Or we could take Williams’s advice and we can demand better.