SHOUT is:

Birmingham’s first ever dedicated festival by and for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community

There’s an impressively packed schedule of things going on from 28 October to 30 November with arts, sport and politics all accounted for. With such a variety, picking out highlights can be a little tricky. Ben’s picked out his personal highlights over on BiNS while David Viney, one of the organisers, has sent me some suggestions from the more arty side of things:

• 3-6 Nov – Birmingham Queer Open – The work of artists from around the world will be projected onto prominent city centre buildings
• 6-27 Nov – CORPUS QUEER: A Del LaGrace Volcano Retrospective – A major retrospective of the work of Del LaGrace Volcano
• 14 Nov – ‘Troubling Desire(s) in Art’: Queer Symposium – Speakers include: Del LaGrace Volcano, Jonathan D Katz, Dominic Johnson, David Dibosa and Mandy Merck. The symposium will be chaired by Gavin Butt of Goldsmiths
• 19-21 Nov – The Pansy Project – Paul Harfleet will plant pansies along Hurst Street; the installation will reclaim the street and create a living memorial to homophobic abuse experienced in the gay village area and the wider city

I’d also chuck in Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray at the Hippodrome (10-14 Nov) which looks pretty interesting, and Mrs Barbara Nice’s Comedy Masterclass (1 Nov).

All the info’s on the SHOUT website and there’s an online version of the festival brochure here.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | Add a comment |

The Event - 2007

The first two weeks of April 2007 saw the culmination of a series of artist-led activities within Birmingham, and this was ‘The Event‘.  At that point in time, the number of artists choosing to stay and work within the city had increased, and an intensification of artistic production had taken place.  It felt very much like Birmingham projected a unique sense of identity, and it was easy to believe that the city held great potential.

Consisting of exhibitions and performances devised by ten of the brightest young visual art organisations in Birmingham at that point in time, the sixteen-day celebration focused on a myriad of event-based practices and exhibitions in such a way as to implicate the whole city into its logic.  Participating organisations included: a.a.s., Capital Art Projects, Colony, [insertspace], International Project Space, Modulate, Periscope, 7inch Cinema, Spectacle, and Springhill Institute.

A lot of interesting work took place, and indeed some of these organisations have developed and flourished (surely most notably 7inch Cinema) – but those without links to their work above, and even some who do have links, are either no longer working as artists / arts organisations, or have begun working under different names without leaving on online breadcrumb trail for me to follow.

In 2007, whilst not all that long ago, there was a definite sense of optimism and indulgence in the arts and arts practice – much moreso than we now have in 2009.  The recession will inevitably have played a large part in this shift, with organisations cutting back or closing down – but what other changes has Birmingham faced that has brought us to this point, so different to that of 2007?  Is there still intense artistic production?  Do people still believe that Birmingham has this great potential?  Have artists changed their practice in response to the current financial climate and retreated back into their stereotypical draughty garrets?

In a timely fashion, The Event has returned once more to open up and explore contemporary art making.  Through an open submission process, artists are invited to send proposals to be included in the November festival.  The deadline for proposals is quite soon – July 13th – but submissions can also be emailed.  I’ve included the details taken from the website below, but please send any specific queries to kaye@the-event.org I will be keen to see which artists are selected, and how their practice reflects the current mood of the city – and also how different the artforms will be, if at all.  Will The Event be inundated with digital submissions, and will there be any entirely virtual submissions running concurrently?

Open Submission

Deadline Midday 13 July 2009

The Event is a contemporary arts festival in Birmingham, showcasing the best in artist-led activity.

We are currently seeking proposals and submissions from artist projects and artist/curators in the Midlands for inclusion in The Event, November 2009.

Proposals with a budget of up to £2000 can be considered. Deadline for submissions is midday on Monday 13 July, proposals received after the deadline cannot be considered.

Proposals must include the following information:
Project proposal (maximum 200 words)
Brief biog/CV
Indication of project costs
Supporting material

Postal applications should be clearly marked:
BCAF Steering Group
The Event
Eastside Projects
86 Heath Mill Lane Birmingham
B9 4AR

NB. Please enclose a SAE for return of material.

e-mailed application should be compiled into one document and emailed to:
kaye@the-event.org

Please contact Kaye Winwood 07834 244 609 or email kaye@the-event.org with any queries.

© Adrienne for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

The event which has most piqued my curioisity is entitled “My Dad’s on Twitter but he doesn’t know why”.  More than just another opportunity to ‘talk shop’, this event promises to collate the ideas and input of attendees into a collaborative group mind map exploring how and why people use social media.  In addition, after the event there will be an opportunity for an online audience to have input into the map as well.  I’m keen to see how this will utilise Bubbl.us – something I stumbled across earlier this week, and which looks like another great free tool.

The event which has most piqued my TASTEBUDS however, is definitely the festival finale – a grand high tea for 300 creative workers in Fazeley Studio’s magnificently restored 19th century chapel reception.  Fazeley currently provides a high tea for tenants every Thursday and have decided to build upon the success of this for the festival.  I’ve been promised there are exciting and secretive things planned for this event which will be unveiled on the day, but if the promise of the tea alone isn’t enough of an incentive, there will also be a preview of the latest Ikon Eastside exhibition – an installation by an emerging Chinese artist called Xu Zhen.

For more details on all of the events taking place during the festival, the Fazeley Digital website will keep you in the loop,  as well as provide opportunities to sign-up for certain events and provide feedback/interact with others.

© Adrienne for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

Moseley Folk Festival by H4NUM4N

But thousands upon thousands of music lovers, from metal heads to twee folksters head to the Midlands every year to experience our independently run festivals, well crafted events that are deeply rooted in the community they came from.

So, forget V, Leeds and Glasto, get yourself along to one of these West Mids fests:

BASS Festival (British Arts and Street Sounds) is the UK’s only month long celebration of Black Music and Art. Every June, the UK comes alive with a phenomenal line up of events, new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film. This year’s theme is ‘Inspired by Africa and Africans’, celebrating and exploring Africa’s influence on the UK arts scene.

When: June. Cost: Free – £10

Moseley Folk Festival has been running for 4 years now, programming  a healthy mix of traditional, contemporary and downright experimental folk and acoustic music. The festival is held in what feels like a world away from Brum’s City Centre within the gorgeous woodlands of Moseley Park. This year’s line up includes: Beth Orton, Saint Etienne, Jethro Tull and Kris Drever, John McCusker & Roddy Woomble.

When: 5th, 6th and 7 th September. Cost: £10 – £65.

Supersonic Festival is definitely one for those who don’t like the mud, but do like loud and experimental music. If you think you don’t, go along to this Custard Factory festival anyway and you may just have an audio visual experience to remember, which has to beat standing the rain listening to Kasabian, right? See the Capsule website for the full line-up.

When: 24th – 25th July. Cost: £15 – £75

Indie Tracks Festival is all a twee navelgazer could ever need in a festival; indiepop bands, a museum, churches, farms and most importantly stream trains. Set further afield in Derby, this fairly new and unspoilt festival is certainly worth the journey from Brum, and is steeped in rural Midlandsness.

When: 24th – 25th July. Cost: £30 – £55

Other more than worthy regional mentions to go Gigbeth, Birmingham International Jazz Festival, CoCoMad, Wolvestock and  Summer Sundae. This isn’t a definitive list, so feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 9 comments |

In addition to this they need a team of volunteers to help deliver the festival over the weekend of the event itself 24th -26th July and in the run up to Supersonic from June onwards. You will be required to do a minimum of 6 hrs over the weekend in return for a day ticket and festival t-shirt.

Interested? Contact  info[at]capsule.org.uk with ‘volunteer’ as the subject field.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 2 comments |

Floodgate Kino by sharl

Thank goodness for Flatpack’s guest blogger Eleanor McKeown. London based Eleanor works for quarterly cinema magazine Electric Sheep and popped up from the capital to experience the weird wonderment of Flatpack Festival, and to stay in the historic back to backs. Her very specific knowlege base and the fact she is an out of towner makes for interesting reading, though photos to illustrate the words would have been nice.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

The quality of the student work produced went beyond my expectations, which shows when students are given the opportunity to show work outside of University buildings and away from cosy degree shows things can get very exciting for both artist and art lover. I know when I was on a Fine Art degree course I thrived on finding unusal sites to exhibit my work and my practice was all the better for it.

I think it is easy to underestimate how much it means to students when they get asked to participate is such projects and how much they can get out of it. I commend Ian and Pip at Flatpack, and the Universities for taking the time to put this together as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Following on with my latest obsession with maps, I have put together the installation trail as a Google map with photographs and links to videos I took of the artists introducing the work on the launch night:

View Larger Map

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

Here is the line up:

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

Flatpack 2009 will launch at Town Hall on 11 March with ‘Curzonora’, a show featuring ‘musical whirlwind’ The Destroyers and celebrating Mr Jeffs’ legacy and that of 1900s film-shows in general. Here’s the poster:

The Mr Jeffs referred to is film showman, and patron saint of Flatpack 3, Waller Jeffs who, from 1901 to 1912:

introduced hundreds of thousands of Brummies to the delights of cinema through his annual seasons at the Curzon Hall, Suffolk Street, with light opera, military bands, live sound effects and intriguing novelty acts

Nicky from DiG has been keeping a better eye on the Flatpack website and blog than I have and reports:

The festival, taking place 11-15 March, is set to make the most of Digbeth and Eastside ‘in venues ranging from Floodgate Kino, a warehouse in Birmingham’s Eastside district which will be transformed into a picturehouse for the weekend, to art project spaces IKON Eastside, Eastside Projects, The Edge and the Electric…’ It also looks like they’ll be bringing the poor, neglected Curzon Station to life.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

If you want to get involved with the St Patrick’s Festival in Digbeth then follow the instructions on the poster (or that link).

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Positively Red is

a festival aimed at confronting the legacy of stigma and prejudice associated with HIV and raising awareness of the condition in Birmingham on and around World Aids Day 2008

There’ll be an exhibition in a unit on the lower level of the Pavillions shopping centre from Saturday 29 Nov which will run daily until Saturday 6 Dec. The exhibition will feature work from

BCUs School of Art and Halesowen College alongside artists from Art Pride and Work Artist Group as well as selected invited artists from the Midlands

At 6.30pm on 1 Dec there will be a parade from outside the Waterstones near the Bullring, ending at the Town Hall to mark the beginning of a gala concert.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

If I could, I’d be checking out The Destroyers (amusingly described as “Oompah oompah oompah oompah oompah oompah pah, OY! x 1m” by one unconverted soul), the Sugar Hill Gang and the 4Talent stage.

In fact, 4Talent can have an extra plug because not only are they hosting the stage debut of CiB-founder Pete Ashton and friends, including this chap:

but they’re also giving away USB wristbands to the first 100 people through the door.  They’ve been preloaded with videos, MP3s and a podcast from the acts they’ll be featuring on the night.  If you need to know more, here’s what the 4Talent wristbands contain.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

• Plus+ International Design Expo
• Flip Animation Festival
• Gigbeth

Plus+ kicked off today at Fazeley Studios, Digbeth.  I’m heading over in a bit and am not really sure what to expect other than the much-discussed tart cards.  I suppose I’m looking forward to catching a talk or two and just having a mooch about.

Flip is over in Wolverhampton at the Light House and consists of three days of animation goodness – screenings, portfolio dissections, talks and all sorts, with a closing party hosted by Colour.

Gigbeth kicks off with the conference tomorrow and carries on through to Saturday evening.  There’s loads of info out there for anyone wanting to look.  May I direct you to:

• The programme
• Jon Bounds’ round-up (featuring a link to his Gigbeth MySpace marathon)
• Info about 4Talent’s stage, featuring CiB’s Pete Ashton between the other acts
• Rich Batsford has blogged about playing the 4Talent stage and also at Drop Beats Not Bombs later in the evening
• Rhubarb Radio will be broadcasting live feeds from some of the stages

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

The Flip Animation Festival (6-8 November at Light House, Wolverhampton) has been assembling a rather tasty line-up over the past little while, as documented on their nicely informative blog.

Highlights include:

A retrospective of work from Osbert Parker, best know for his cut out animation style mixed with live action; BAFTA & Screen WM Presents: Ninja Theory, the game developers behind the stunning Heavenly Sword and Kung Fu Chaos; Sita Sings the Blues, a screening of this modern classic and Indian epic; a day of Doctor Who animation treats and a real Dalek fleet will invade Light House!

The line-up is up on the Flip Festival website and tickets are available at very reasonable prices.

It’s competition time!

However, if you’d rather swipe a ticket for free then here’s your chance.  There are two available, to be given separately (ie not as a pair) so there’ll be two winners.

All you have to do is leave a comment claiming your ticket, first two claimants will win.  Rules are as before (except for the first one) and please use a proper email address so I can get in touch.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

Brilliantly Birmingham is:

showcases the work of local, national and international designer makers through a full programme of exhibitions, workshops and special events. All exhibitions are free of charge and the festival promises to be a fascinating insight into jewellery-making today

will take place at a variety of venues across the city and region from 28th November 2008 – 21st December 2008.

Incidentally, is there anyone regularly blogging (or reporting in any way) about jewellery in Birmingham?  I’ve not spotted anyone on my wanderings and would love to know if I’ve missed someone.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 7 comments |

Here are some links to things out there:

• Today (15 Oct) is the last day for buying cheaper earlybird tickets
• Here’s the Gigbeth schedule, although at the mo there are more bands listed on the Gigbeth MySpace
• For a second year, Jon at B:iNS has braved the Gigbeth MySpace Marathon, checking out each band that’s playing
• From watching the interview below, it seems that although the music part of the festival serves as the shop window, the Gigbeth Conference is a bigger thing than many of us will appreciate
• Incidentally, rather than churning out press releases, the Gigbeth blog is an engaging and lively thing written by a few people (I think – who writes each post is a bit of a mystery)

Last, and certainly not least, our Frankie sat down with Gigbeth’s organiser, Clare Edwards, for a natter about how the festival and conference started, what it’s all about and this year’s most exciting acts:

Interview with Clare Edwards, Gigbeth from Created in Birmingham on Vimeo.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

Hello World is:

Birmingham’s international digital media conference, held at Millennium Point from October 23-24 as part of the Hello Digital festival

Tickets at the talks are free but, given the calibre of some of the speakers (impressive bods from Flickr, Pixar, Channel 4 and so on), really will need to be booked online pretty sharpish.

Here’s the line-up.

Thursday 23 Oct:

• 9.30am – Gaming Gets Serious
• 11.15am – Doing Business in a Digital World
• 2pm – Digital Content Creation and Distribution

Friday 24 Oct:

• 10am – 4iP Regional Launch
• 11.45am – Digital Debate: Do or Die? Coping With Convergence in the Digital Age
• 1pm – “Talent 2 Market”- Developing the Skills of the Creative and Media Sector
• 2.30pm – In Conversation with Heather Champ, Director of Community at Flickr
• 3.45pm – In Conversation with Michal Makarewicz, Pixar Animation Studios

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

The website for 2007’s festival is still up including this description of what it’s all about:

The festival remains fiendishly difficult to summarise, but intrepid punters can expect to find shorts, animation, music documentaries, independent features, live soundtracks, discussion events, web oddities, installations, parties and plenty more besides – with a general focus on people using limited resources in imaginative ways

Details are still a little way off with venues just being booked up now.  Stay tuned though.

This bit of info came from 7 Inch’s latest newsletter/listings for October which is well worth a look.

Oh heck, and I’ve just noticed it also mentions this:

Tuesday 11 November at Warwick Arts Centre
NOSFERATU
More Murnau, this time with the Matthew Eaton/Grandmaster Gareth score performed at Supersonic in July. (Sunrise next please!)

I saw half of this at Supersonic and can’t recommend it enough.  Nor can Cat Bray for that matter.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

A community consultation to look at the future structure of the company that organises Birmingham’s St Patrick’s Festival

16th October 2008
8.00pm – 9.30pm
Irish Club, High Street, Digbeth

Come along and share your ideas!
Get involved.

If you cannot make the meeting please email Karen on karenbarry22@yahoo.co.uk before the 23rd October 2008 with your views.

Incidentally, I remember some discussion last year about the merits of the parade’s website and hear that someone’s volunteered (and is now working) to put something different together.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

It’s been put together by talented localers Made Media, Maverick, Fluid & Stef Lewandowski.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 7 comments |

Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head.  Still here are they:

• Every event has been manfully wrangled into the Live Brum database
• Jon Bounds has scanned the programme and put it online
• He’s also put together a map showing what’s happening where (but not when)
• Matthew Somerville from Dracos.co.uk has put together a searchable list of events listed by time, not location

I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.

In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do.  Or at least what I think looks interesting.

Friday evening

Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.

• Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
• From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House.  Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures.  Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
• Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation.  Could be interesting
• At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
• The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)

Saturday

Saturday’s the tricky one.  There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across.  That said…

• Nic Gaunt’s exhibition ‘The Rotunda: 21 Stories‘ will be at The Pavillions all day
• From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”.  Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
• From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items.  Plus there’ll be fireworks.
• After that it’s Project X Presents for me.  It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.

Sunday

• If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’.  At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
• After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
• From 7pm Needle & Thread Theatre are doing the rather charming-looking ‘Between The Lines’ – walking theatre around the Central Library.  This is on on Saturday too (call 07530 939 380 to book a free place)
• It’s Kerrangfest in Centenary Square from 12pm with The Mexicolas, The Metros, Envy & Other Sins and The Levellers later in the evening.

Of course, whether I actually get round a fraction of all of that is another question.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

With 500 or so events scheduled, picking through the programme isn’t easy but there is at least a ‘recommended’ section on the homepage.  When I get a chance I’ll have a flick through and pick out the bits that I think look most interesting.

Volunteers are still needed, by the way.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 6 comments |

The former comes courtesy of Claudia Losi’s Balena Project as presented by Ikon Gallery (and previously alluded to).  A 25ft cashmere whale will be deposited by the escalators in The Mailbox from 24 Sept to 26 Oct.  This is what it looks like:

Hmm, so it doesn’t look like a fearsome, city-levelling villain, more like me flopped on my sofa feeling sorry for myself.

Meanwhile, flyers for Hello Digital (a mere 6 weeks away and still no-one knows quite what it is) will apparently be distributed around the Bullring tomorrow by a giant robot.  Brilliant!

I’ll write something about Hello Digital when I know what’s going on but details have been trickling out:

• It’ll be happening predominently at Millennium Point and will be free to attend
• SCAMP will kick things off on the first night with an “electro-acoustic and live visual performance”
• An international digital conference called ‘Hello World’ will take place on 23-24 October
• There’ll be an interactive ‘Field of Light‘ from the Plus Expo people, controllable via a microsite (this sounds dead cool)
• Capsule’s ‘Home of Metal‘ project will launch at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday 25 Oct
• Baskerville: The Animated Movie will get it’s premiere
• Killriculum seems to involve getting kids to watch scary short films while lying in coffins
• Digital Storytelling is “a touching vision of the world we live in”. Hmm, sounds very worthy
• The Light House in Wolverhampton, in association with 4Talent, will be screening “contemporary and classic film from the Film4 back catalogue”

So far the Hello Digital blog and Twitter are up and running and the main site is due to go live any minute now.  Meanwhile here’s the flyer:

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars.  The festival ends on 24 October.

There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary – the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.

For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn.  There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.

Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too – that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.

Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors – Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

Comedy escapes CiB’s notice most of the time so here goes a mention of the Birmingham Comedy Festival 2008, featuring an impressive list of talent, including the Edinburgh Festival’s newly crowned Perrier (or whatever) Award Winner, David O’Doherty.

Holding up Birmingham’s end are drag duo Patrick and Bernadine (Solihull Arts Complex, 4 Oct) and a whole host of local folk at ‘Wrote Under and Friends Comedy’ at the Kitchen Garden Cafe on .  There’s possibly a few more localers too, but none I recognised on the festival’s listings page.

The Old Joint Stock Theatre is also hosting a day dedicated to Tony Hancock at the Old Joint Stock Theatre on 11 October.

It’s the big names that will stick out, of course, and there are plenty of those this year.  As long as Dylan Moran, Mark Steel and Ted Chippington get the attention they deserve all will be well.

The festival starts on 3 October and ends on 12 October.  Visit the Birmingham Comedy Festival website for more info.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

The next one is apparently on Saturday and:

the very vague theme is ‘French Fancies & Freaky Kids Flicks’. Expect weird film from psychedelic animator Vince Collins and even weirder music.  Entry is £2.50 with invite or £3.50 without; for more information, text OUTERSIGHT to 07887 956297, or e-mail outersight@live.com to join the mailing list

So if you’re not listening politely to another quite pleasant acoustic act at Moseley Folk Festival then perhaps pop down to this.  Speaking of the Mofo Festival (as no-one is calling it, thankfully) it kicks off today and I hear that kids’ tickets have gone.  When I bought a ticket the other day (pay in cash at Polar Bear and avoid a hefty booking fee from some other outlets) they were going quick – apparently it looks like Saturday might sell out but there should be tickets on the door if you get down in time.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Friday is funny light show and parade day

Saturday is fireworks day

Sunday is Kerrangfest day with the Levellers

Which is pretty good but, although the official programme’s not out yet, I’ve been having a bit of a rummage about to see what’s on.

Friday

I’ve already mentioned Light Night.  One of the buildings to be illuminated is the Town Hall which will be hosting a free event from 8pm on the Friday featuring Manga, Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble and Maylight.

Also on Friday there’s the free Reggae Rockz Festival 2008 from 8pm to 11pm in Centenary Square.  Unfortunately on the Facebook event page the organisers spend all their time bleating about a lack of promotion from Artsfest and don’t get round to telling us much about what they’l be doing.  The Beat are playing, that much is sure.  The Reggae Rockz website manages to be even less informative.  Ah well.

Saturday

It looks like Dholfest 2008 is the biggie here – an attempt to break the world record for the most dhol players in one place (currently 314 players in Sandwell in 1999).  They’re aiming for 500 this time.  This one will be held in Victoria and Centenary Squares.

Meanwhile, the Custard Factory will be hosting a day of hip hop with Mylz from Heducation and Madman the Greatest down to perform.

Sunday

Sunday is Kerrangfest day with This Beautiful Thief and The Levellers the only bands I’ve spotted so far.

Across the weekend

Spaghetti Gazetti has info about the weekend’s poetry performances.

This year the ShortCuts film programme will be extended slightly, with “a more relaxed, experimental programme of films made by local and international film makers” on the Sunday and a set of fims programmed in conjunction with Deaffest across the weekend.  There’s more about those in this post from the Artsfest blog.

There’s much more to come and I’ll let you know when I see a full programme lying around the internet somewhere.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Light Night in Birmingham will feature architectural lighting of iconic city centre buildings and iconic landmarks such as:

• The newly refurbished £35M Town Hall
• The Council House
• Museum and Art Gallery
• Selfridges building at the Bullring
• The Rotunda
• Birmingham Cathedral
• plus a few surprises!

These landmarks will be beautifully lit to create a visually stunning trail of features around Birmingham City Centre.

The idea of all-night festivals is fairly established on the continent – from the original ‘Nuit Blanche‘ in Paris in 2002.  As well as the illuminated buildings there will be street performances, music and the shops will stay open later.  It’s meant to be a family affair so the fit with Artsfest makes sense.

What’s more, the people at 383Project have designed the brochure for the event and blogged about it to boot.

You can see more on the Light Night website (which wasn’t made 383Project).

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Running annually since 1994, the festival promises:

Great concerts, international stars and exciting and inspirational programmes brought to the heart of Birmingham

Which sounds lovely.  Shows will take place at the Barber Institute, St George’s and St Augustine’s churches in Edgbaston and St Phillips Cathedral.

In case you’re too embarrassed to ask, early music refers to Baroque, Renaissance, choral and other music in that vein. Here, have a link to the wikipedia entry.

via D’Log

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Well ladies, gents and those who merely resemble humans, I am pleased and rather smug to let you know that in November you’ll have the opportunity to ‘hear the rhythm of the boogiddy beat’ live when The Sugarhill Gang perform at Saturday night’s Gigbeth!

Fused happen to have an interview with the Sugarhill Gang in their current issue.

Tickets will go on sale in August and we can expect to see a few more acts announced soon too.  If you want to get involved with the Gigbeth street team CiB’s Frankie Ward is organising the street team so if you want to get involved with that give her a shout at frankiepromotes[@]gmail.com or via the Gigbeth Facebook group.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |