Hi everyone,
As some of you may know, there was an incident at Elsewhere between an artist and a member of our security team on Tuesday, October 4. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we thoroughly investigated the situation and reached out to the artists involved. First and foremost, the safety of our audiences, artists, and staff is essential in creating a safe and fun environment at Elsewhere. While these issues are always complex, we do NOT condone violence in any form.
We fully recognize that we fell short on this night. We have an in-house security team that we staff and train so that such incidents never happen. Our training is focused on empathy, de-escalation and sensitivity, never aggression, which is when things can get out of hand. When a situation arose that night, unfortunately the actions that our security team member took failed to de-escalate it and were unacceptable. Because of this, they are no longer employed by Elsewhere. We are actively working to ensure this will remain an isolated incident, including a thorough review and assessment of our training and protocols, particularly around sensitivity and de-escalation.
We extend a deep and sincere apology to everyone who was impacted by what happened—to Pink Siifu, Eyedress, all the Lex Records artists and team members, all their family members and all the fans, and to our community that comes to Elsewhere as a beacon of progress and positivity. Violence is never the answer.
We’re trying to work towards reconciliation with Siifu and the artists’ teams to reach a place of understanding and peace. Our #1 priority is to be a safe space where everyone can freely be themselves, and we remain committed to upholding that for our artists, fans and staff.
We hope to open the dialogue and, as always, we encourage your feedback on how we can continue to improve.
https://pitchfork.com/news/brooklyn-venue-elsewhere-fires-employee-who-allegedly-assaulted-pink-siifu
