This is an idea that’s been knocking about in my head for the last few years, a festival of festivals, and I’ve mentioned it during that time to several organisers..
Used with permission, Thanks lomokev!
In Brighton there is a lot of event activity at the end of each year, here’s a list:
- Develop – 14th-16th July 2009
- Beachdown Music Festival – 28th-31st August 2009
- dConstruct – 4th September 2009
- Barcamp Brighton – 5th-6th September 2009 TBC
- Flash on the Beach – 20th-23rd September 2009
- Mix UK – September 2009 TBC
- Amplified (new) – September 2009 TBA
- Head – October 2009 TBC
- Brighton Comedy Fringe – 15th-31st October 2009
- Paramount Comedy Festival – 15th-31st October 2009
- Full Frontal (new) – 20th November 2009
- CINECITY – Novemeber 2009
- DiMAS (web awards) – November 2009 TBC
- Twestival – September 2009? TBC
- Farm Hack Day – 2009? (might have been a one-off last time)
And other regular, smaller events, all year round, such as:
So how about joining them together, informally at first, under one umbrella group of events, a festival of festivals if you will! A month (or 2?) of events and activities, strung together, collaborating on parts, and going beyond the normal boundaries. It’s when fringes blur into each other that things get really interesting.
Ok so the dates are a little far apart for some of those events, but others are so close together that maybe other events will appear in between. We’re way off having a single ticket for everything, but a single banner could be achievable.
I can imagine creating an atmosphere of creativity and learning, mixed with music and relaxation, not to mention the meeting people and spending real time exploring ideas in between events, not being rushed, or leaving town the next day..
So would this be a good idea? Would we risk dilution? or would it raise the profile of the events and the city?
What do you think?
(Oh, and any events I missed that would fit in well?)
UPDATE:
Here’s some more groups that meet regularly.. I’m sure they could organise something during the festival too :)
Brighton Bloggers, Freelancers Farm, Girl Geek Dinners, UX Brighton, Geek Wine Thing, Brighton Flickr, Open Coffee Sussex, Likemind, Skillswap, Sussex Geek Dinners, Brighton Illustrators, Brighton Vine, Freelance Journalists…
What else is going on in art, music, film or literature that the geeks don’t know about? I’ll add to the list. This is also relevant to Amplified09 too, which will be a one day meeting during this period, of all these groups and networks.
UPDATE 2:
Two other music festivals to add to Beachdown are Loop and The Great Escape, I don’t think they’ll move from the summer, but maybe they could all collaborate on a weekend in September? :)
Comment by Mark Perkins
July 2, 2009 @ 9:03 pm
I like it… then we would just need to have a macheist-style bundle package for all the conference tickets :-)
Comment by Rob Shepherd
July 2, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
Definitely like this! What a GOOD idea!
Comment by Jamie Matthews
July 2, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
Great idea – don’t forget Loop Festival: http://loopbrighton.com
Comment by Nick Mosley
July 3, 2009 @ 10:01 am
This is something we moored last year however we went with ‘the festival city’. Problem with an overall banner for all festivals to sit under is that they are all independently produced, with different agendas, and their is no centralised body co-ordinating. I’d be interested chatting if you have ideas
Comment by Ruth H
July 3, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
There’s a good template for something like this in Manchester – Futuresonic (now Futureeverything) encompasses art, music and technology. Alfie Dennen spoke at it, and probably knows who to talk to and ask for advice.
I don’t know if they’re doing it again, but last year’s White Nights (December) were a huge success and there are several cities in the UK planning something similar in the coming months. There’s also a Jewish Film Festival, an Early Music festival (not sure of dates), and an Acoustic Music festival in Lewes. There was also a ‘Burlesue Against Breat Cancer’ event around that time last year, but I don’t know if the organisers are planning to do it again.
There are other semi-regular events that could tie into this too – Val Cartei at Adaptive organises Culture Geeks (which would be a good place to start in terms of bringing the two worlds together) and interdisciplinary co-working spaces like Coachwerks might also be interested in getting involved.
Of course, the issue for something like this is ‘who’s going to do it’? Would a large(ish) organisation like the local tourist board be able to commit time and resources to this? Would any of the festival organisers have time to think outside of their own remit (given that most of them run on tight budgets and stretched resources)?
Also, in whose interest would it be to pull these events together? What agenda is being set by/for individual festivals, and is there something that they all have in common – other than simply being festivals in Brighton?
You could be looking at something as simple as a marketing campaign to draw people to Brighton – which would seem to me to fall between the council, the tourist board and development agencies like Seeda and Wired Sussex. What plans do those agencies have already, what work have they done on this, and is there a way to avoid duplicating that work?
Or are you looking at something more ambitious – a ‘Brighton Festival Pass’, making our festivals behave more like SXSW? In that case, it’s back to the funding requirements for all those festivals – is it really feasible to offer that kind of access?
Events like Dconstruct tend to sell out very quickly, and between the various warm up/close down parties, gatherings, workshops and the conference itself, is fairly all-consuming. There isn’t really the time to tag anything on to Dconstruct (one of its strengths, I think) – and that runs straight into Barcamp – another all-consuming event.
Also, is distributed rather than physically Brighton-based. It takes place (over here) primarily in the evening – which would have an impact on any arts/culture stuff that could be potentially partnered with it.
I love the idea of an interdisciplinary festival but to be honest I think the better model for that would be bottom-up rather than top-down; something new that crosses boundaries and invites participation from other people – rather than setting requirements and agendas for existing events that might not fit with their own aims.
Comment by Ruth H
July 3, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
He he. Just got pwned by HTML. 2nd to last para should have said:
Also, ‘Head’ is distributed rather than physically Brighton-based. It takes place (over here) primarily in the evening – which would have an impact on any arts/culture stuff that could be potentially partne(red) with it.
Comment by Rosie
July 10, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
Isn’t this similar to the Brighton Digital Festival?
Wired Sussex organised it in 2007, not been once since.
http://www.brightondigitalfestival.co.uk/
Am guessing they got money to do it somehow, perhaps grant money. Not sure though.
Comment by mark walker
July 10, 2009 @ 9:11 pm
hi josh/all
a lot like some stuff we did with virtual festival and digital festival ie an umbrella beneath which various strands could run. it’s also a bit like brighton festival and/or the Fringe
to work well the pay off needs to be that the umbrella gives the individual events something they can’t have on their own – so the people orgsnising stuff need to see a chance to get extra punters, different punters, more sponsorship, new ideas, whatever
i’m not sure anyone really gets anything form lumping stuff together, except the people responsible for ‘brand brighton’ – like the council, wired sussex, business forum, etc. and I know that the digital festival cost a lot of money to coordinate, which is exactly which I stopped tryng to get the virtual festival together
happy to meet and talk about it – how about reviving the web awards as a showcase event in the midst of festival season. something you could ‘tack on’ to more or less any event?
best wishes
mark
ps maybe take you up on that coffee next week if you’re in town?