On 22 February, the #KittenCamp tour is heading to Birmingham. Since launching in London last year, it’s developed quite a cult following amongst creative and ‘web-loving, media types’, as a chance to meet up, hear from a few show and tell-ers, have a drink and chat about memes.
The event will be taking place at The Victoria, and will welcome Myles McLeod, Animation Writer and Director of The Brothers McLeod and David Edmundson-Bird, Director of Digital Marketing Communications at Manchester Met University, who’ll be introducing some fun and interesting things.
Director of Rubber Republic, Chris Quigley, will also be parading the event dressed as a giant cat, and talking about the latest internet memes and viral trends.
Tickets are free, and can be booked via Eventbrite, where you can also find more info on the event.
The generally stress free holiday of Halloween presents an excuse for some thrilling fun for all ages. Here’s a run down of a few things going on in Birmingham;
Invisible City‘s final event, Media Circus, takes place on 29 Oct at Fazeley Studios. With entertainment, music, drinks, performances and digital displays, along with the winners of the Invisible City categories to be announced. Fancy dress is along the lines of Victorian Circus.
Black Country Living Museum are holding Halloween at the Museum on 30 & 31 Oct from 6.30pm – 10pm, with opportunities for psychic reading and trick or treating along the cobbled streets.
Take a guided tour of Aston Hall, exploring the ghosts and legends on 31 Oct at 7.30pm. Full of spooky surprises, this is not suitable for children of a ‘nervous disposition’.
Halloween Night at the Museum Collections Centre invites you on a spine tingling trail for a chance to see some of the scariest objects not on general display, join the tour on 29 Oct from 6.30pm – 9pm.
Since Halloween falls on a weekend, it would be a crime to let an opportunity to get dressed up go unmentioned. Most weekend club nights will be welcoming heavy eyeliner and fake blood, on the only occasion where you can get away with wearing a bin liner, here’s a few that stand out;
Plus outfit inspiration is provided by this month’s issue of Area for how to pull off a creepy-but-cool costume, with just the right amount of effort to keep your street cred.
OxjamBrum is fast approaching, the bands are ready to go, with 12 hours of live music coming from 40 local acts from 2pm onwards on Sat 16 October.
Tickets are only £6 and get you access to all the venues at any time. Advance tickets are on sale until Fri 15 October at midnight, but tickets will also be available on the door. The wristband exchange point on the day will be at The Yardbird, where you can also pick up stage times for all the venues.
A quick reminder that tonight is PILOT Light, taking place at The Victoria at 7:30pm. An excuse to mingle, have a drink and be entertained by the theatre artists who are unleashing their fresh, unpolished ideas.
It’s number 2. The difficult second book. So we’ve tweaked things a bit. We need you to tell us if it works. As, of course, do the brave artists performing their brand new theatrical ideas on our little stage!
‘An evening of barely organised theatrical chaos!’
The next PILOT Light takes place on 14 October at 7.30pm, The Victoria, and is on the hunt for untested, unpolised and unfinished ideas from theatre artists. This is great chance to meet and share your thoughts with like-minded people, where mistakes are welcomed so long as you bring your passion along too.
It’s an opportunity for theatre artists from the West Midlands to test out 5-10 minutes of work that is right at the beginning of its developmental process in front of a curious, confused and courageous audience. It’s also a chance to find out who else is doing what in the area, and make new creative connections.
If this sounds like your kinda thing, email your proposals to PILOTlight@mail.com by 2 October, with the following information:
Contact/Company Name:
Description of idea (max 200 words):
Length of performance (10 minutes max):
Number and names of all people involved:
Estimate of travel expenses (we have a small budget for travel expenses that will be shared between participants).
Successful applicants will receive email confirmation by 5th October.
Picked this up at Artsfest. I can’t find much about it online, but it looks interesting.
20 – 22 September at The Victoria, Green Gorilla Presents – Polite Assassins – A play celebrating an almost forgotten heroine air-brushed out of history, Mary Seacole. Starting at 7:30pm, tickets are £7/ £5 concessions.
Just a quick round up of everything going on this weekend, there’s a lot and we wouldn’t want you to forget and miss out on anything!
Cum Clubbing – Hosted by VIVID, this art party does not look like something to be missed (although it’s happening now, so get down quick). From 8pm – late, VIVID’s project space will be taken over by live music, DJs and visual artists who’ll conspire to create an excitingly strange evening of camp disco. Tickets are £5.
Zine Festival- Not put off by the scale of Artsfest, this niche festival has a weekend full of events for you to get involved in.
Starting this evening at The Edge is a screening of ‘$100 & A T-Shirt‘, Joe Biel’s documentary on zine culture. Entry is a £1, which also gets you a bag of popcorn, along with a talk from Pete Ashton and Rob Horrocks on the emergence of the small press comics scene and music zine influence in the 80s.
The Victoria is host to the Zine Fair on Saturday from 12 – 6pm, along with a workshop from 2 – 2.30pm with Peter Lally, as he runs through the history of Alternative Press and curates a Q&A session on running your own zine events.
At 5 – 6.30pm Island Bar are inviting zine fans to ‘Drop in + Draw’, offering a pencil and paper to unwind with, before the party starts with the Atta Girl Zine Party, 8pm – 2am.
From 6.30 – 8.30pm, Get A Grip will be guiding guests through the process of making your very own totally unique t-shirt. T-shirt, equipment, inks, images and expertise supplied for £20 per person. If you fancy it, book in advance, more details here.
Sunday will be a chilled out picnic in Cannon Hill Park at 1 – 4pm. With nothing for sale and free to attend, the party will be meeting at mac.
Artsfest – As already mentioned, the weekend of free arts events kicks off this evening and will continue to entertain through to Sunday night. With live performances coming from Centenary Square and Chamberlain Square, along with short films and animations screened at the Crescent, plus various performances and workshops held at theaters and bars across the city, don’t let the miserable weather deter you from leaving the house!
This is one for the promoters out there. And for anyone who gripes about not being able to find out what’s going on in this fair city (that’ll be most people then).
So realistically, we’re left with flyering and postering. Which is fine. Well, unless you live in Birmingham that is. If you’ve tried to do it here, you’ll know it’s a nightmare. You can’t flyer, you can’t poster, and subsequently promoters of all events face the prospect of shutting down due to a lack of numbers.
Venues don’t want to cross-promote, understandably, but as a result, it looks to the average punter like there isn’t much going on in the city. And when I say ‘average punter’ I mean, someone who likes going out, but isn’t switched on to the whole social networking/blogging/RSS thing.
Popcorn Comedy showcases the funniest comedy videos from around the internet, combined with live stand ups and character comedians, who mix in their own comedy videos for good measure.
This time, Popcorn has live performances from Rob Rouse (8 out of 10 Cats, Grown Ups) and Brian Gittins (described by Ricky Gervais as “One of the best comedy characters of the decade”). I’ll be hosting the night along with my Dice Productions cronies, so I’ll see you there.
The first Dr Sketchy’s burlesque/drawing event of the year will be on Sat 16 Jan at The Victoria and the theme will be ‘Victoriana’. Tickets here (I think it tends to sell out). Here’s the FB event with more details.
Producers’ Forum Monthly Networking
“The Producers’ Forum next monthly networking meeting will be on Monday 14th December 17:00 at The Victoria Pub”
Business Development Grants – Birmingham City Council
“The Business Development Grant Programme is funded by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund and runs until March 2011. It is aimed specifically at helping new and existing small to medium sized businesses citywide to develop and grow”. Maybe worth a look
Carbon Clothing
Carbon Clothing are based in Birmingham, have been going since 2007 and have created “a huge range of custom funny, DJ, Music and video game based clothing”
From the folks at Film Forum WM comes the news that Moving Pictures – the film night at The Victoria – are to start screening locally made short films. Sounds like a splendid idea.
Send your films to – Claire Goldthorp, Moving Pictures, The Victoria, 48 John Bright St, Birmingham B1 1BN.
Btw, they’re showing The Life of Brian this Sunday.
Audio visuals treats will abound on Friday 23 October at The Victoria. There’ll be local talent in the shape of DJ Mark Smallman, STRAX DJs, Chromatouch, Sam Redmore and Joseph Potts from Modulate.
Even more impressively, there’ll be a performance by Oli Sorenson, aka VJ Anyone. This guy’s one of the world’s best and doesn’t play such intimate venues very often – he’s usually working at the behest of top name dance acts and fancy brands.
As well as all that they’ll have all sorts of fun cleverness in the form of the Tagtool, Wiiwhorld, and 10-player Bomberman.
