The Last Dinner Party, an all-female baroque pop group, canceled their show at the Engine Shed in Lincolnshire, England on September 28th. Male fans who attended the show alone disclosed that they had been taken aside and screened before entering the Engine Shed.

One (now-private) post on X reads "Just arrived at the gig, been funneled 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." Another male fan got the classic "how long [he] had liked them for" and "[his] favorite song" questions, and still another recounted getting whisked away and searched.

The band's cancellation of the show was unrelated to these incidents, as a member of the group reportedly fell ill.

The venue issued this 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 utilized 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 apologize 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."

Meanwhile, the band delivered their own statement of a similar length on both matters at hand:

"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 apologized 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 apologize 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 later canceled their following shows in Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol, and Southampton.