September 14-15, 1974: The First Fest for Beatles Fans

Come together, right now! This week, Emily and V head back to the extremely seventies 1970s to look at a fandom currently having a resurgence on Tumblr: The Beatles. V has actually been to "The Fest," as groovy kids call it, and wrote a paper on Beatlemania that got published a zillion years ago to boot, so she chimes in about what this fandom is like from ground level while Emily marvels at the guts of The Fest's founder, Mark Lapidos, and how very accessible people were in 1974. Then we end with a tangent on the importance of internet safety? It's a thing. Be safe on the internet, kids, and remember that she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Sources

Fanlore
V's article republished at AO3
The Fest: History
Beatlemania: The "Screamers" And Other Tales of Fandom by Dorian Lynskey
Diagnosing Beatlemania by John McMillian
Beatlemania: A Sexually Defiant Subculture? by Barbara Ehrenreich, et al.