I have resisted the temptation to put my thoughts on Gigbeth 2008 down as I didn’t attend any part of it. I was hoping to hear all the stories, read up on the reviews and look at the pictures but to be honest there hasn’t been much to look at. Perhaps I haven’t looked very far.
Was it a another failure or another success, how do you define failure, how do you define success? Was it a failure and also a success? How was Gigbeth for you? What impact has Gigbeth had? How do you measure an event’s success?
This is the only photo sent in to the Music Network during the event from a member of the public, was it really all that bad?
I don’t think it was. Have a look at this http://www.davepiper.org.uk/music/gigbeth08/gigbethmainlogotilt/
There is a flickr group that people have contributed to here:
http://flickr.com/search/?q=gigbeth&s=rec
Gigbeth Reviews:
4 Talent Magazine http://www.4talentmagazine.com/2008/11/11/4talent-gigbeth-stage-round-up
Rhubarb Radio http://www.rhubarbradio.com/live/events/archive.aspx
Gigbeth PO Box 14386
Birmingham
B25 9EL
www.gigbeth.com
www.gigbethconference.com
Please send in your links, photos, reviews and comments on your Gigbeth experience and any suggestions for the future would be most welcome, i feel some evaluation of past events and hopes for future ones may be useful. Your comments please…..
Kate Deer said…
I dont think there is any doubt over this years disaster that the festival is an embarrassment to the region and the ticket sales ( were there any? ) point to no one being very turned on by the idea.
Take away the funding from the organisers and see if they can make it work when they have to make a profit to survive, thats how the rest of the country do their busniess, time for Gigbeth to show us whether it is a valid business model.
Lots of photos from the 3days can be found here:
http://www.davepiper.org.uk/blog/archives/1289
For me it was a failure. I blogged about my worries about Gigbeth just before the event at http://www.catnipmusic.co.uk/2008/11/04/gigbeth-urban-music-festival-or-urban-myth/.
I didn’t change my mind after attending the event. On approaching Digbeth to collect our tickets at the start of the festival, I would have hoped the streets would be thronging with people. I saw not one sole. Most of the gigs were deserted too.
I think that a credible music festival can only be run by experienced professionals from the music industry.
A bunch o’links:
My thoughts before it happened: http://russl.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/what-is-this-gigbeth-thing-anyway/
(I only ended up going to the free Destroyers gig, and afterwards thought that “I hope that they listen to the reasonable advice of others for next year, lest it once again ends up looking like nothing more than a load of self-congratulation for adding a name to a bunch of gigs that would have happened anyway. There were bugger-all punters there, naturally.).
Someone else’s (very funny) thoughts from beforehand: http://thehystericalshriekinggriefoftwats.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-city-but-not-in-city.html
Jon Bounds’ advice from afterwards: http://www.birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk/2008/11/gigbeth-feedback.html (lniks to thoughts on the actual gigs contained therein).
I am in the process of setting up my own Events Company, it’s impossible to find someone with a good venue that actually cares about culture and music and has a capacity of over 300, all the venues I’m approaching are happy for them to make money but will leave me out of pocket and not work with me… does anyone know of a good venue?
I’ve been a journalist for 5 years and have amazing contacts and people willing to play for me and I have what I feel are good ideas I just need the opportunity to showcase them.
Thanks
Andrea
x.
this picture is the stand at the NEC, when there wasn’t anyone there. But there were very few people that went to gigbeth anyway. Not too good, drop beats not bombs was on the saturday night, and did very well on the other hand.