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Eastbourne Festival Live

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Paul Hillyer, Club Events Co-ordinator has just been in touch to tell us about the first ever

Jack Peñate, Pendulum and Zane Lowe headline Eastbourne Festival Live

On Friday 28th and Saturday 29th March, some of the most respected names in modern music will be descending on Eastbourne’s Winter Gardens for the first ever, Eastbourne Festival Live.

A sea-side town that generally gets overlooked on the cultural front, Eastbourne has long awaited an event like this. Not an obvious location you’d expect big musical foot steps, but things are about to change! Eastbourne Borough Council and EBM Live have teamed up with Eastbourne’s Funktion Rooms venue and one of Brighton’s well known music promotion companies RedHot to bring the local residents a top class event on their door step.

Eastbourne Festival kicked off on 15th March and runs for a two week period, bringing together local artists, musicians, dancers, comedians, school children, college students, and community groups from around the town. The musical highlight of this cultural fusion is something that will be unforgettable for 2000+ Eastbourne’s music lovers – a two-day musical extravaganza enough to make any cultural city jealous!

Taking place at the Winter Gardens, Friday 28th March sees indie pop icon Jack Peñate headline the main stage. With top 10 singles and countless plays on Radio 1, he is known for his soulful ska-fueled songs, eccentric dancing and electric live performances. Jack will be accompanied by Radio 1 ’s eclectic selector Zane Lowe who will be turning his hand to what he knows best – playing out some of the hottest new tunes! Joining these two on the main stage will be a melting pot of local and touring bands, including The Metros, Eastbourne’s The Late Greats and Rob The Rich, plus a DJ set by Adam Ficek from cult band Babyshambles.

Ensuring that new bands also have a chance to perform, the second stage will be hosted by SDC Rocks, a live music initiative from Sussex Downs College. Designed to nurture and support emerging local live talent, appearing at the event will be Natalie’s Box, Hold The Phone, Benjamin, Barrier Dutch and 4 More Reasons.

Day 2 of the festival – Saturday 29th March – will focus on the club and DJ event, headlined by Australian Drum & Bass heroes – Pendulum. Playing sell out shows world-wide, Pendulum are doing things in scene that have never been experienced before. Merging what was once a singular musical genre into an open house for bass lovers all over, the band fuse razor sharp Drum & Bass beats with hardcore rock influences. To compliment their unique production they will be joined by some big hitters in the scene, Dj Hype, MC Verse, MC IC3 & new comers onto the circuit, delivering break beats of all styles Ctrl Z as well as local support from X-Faders and Twisted Up promotions.

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National Student Drama Festival Starts

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

The National Student Drama Festival kicked off yesterday with its week long celebration of theatre, live performances, discussions, workshops and special events. With renewed funding it is onward and upward for the NSDF.

The festival began on the 1st January 1956 as a collaboration between the British broadsheet weekly newspaper, The Sunday Times and the National Union of Students. It takes place yearly in seaside the town of Scarborough, in Yorkshire, England. Student theatre groups from all over the UK meet to perform, learn, network and share their passion for the theatrical arts.

While known as one of the best kept secrets in the UK, this festival has launched many a successful career. The National Student Drama Festival has supported student drama for 52 years; long may it continue to nurture the embryonic aspirations of the young and creatively gifted.

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Entertainers Are Entrepreneurs Too!

Monday, March 10th, 2008

On Wednesday we attended a talk given by the extremely personable, Giovanni Benedetti CBE. He is a successful entrepreneur buying up failing businesses and turning them around. He is on the panel of The Prince’s Youth Business Trust and is the father of Nicola Benedetti, the highly talented violinist.

To give you a wee summary, he arrived in Scotland aged 10 in the early 1950s to work in his uncle’s cafe. Inspired to own a nice car but only earning £2 a week he became acutely aware that this would not happen. So at 17 he bought a dry cleaning shop that was not performing very well. Knowing nothing about the dry cleaning business, the owner promised to help him get started but disappeared out of the picture soon afterwards. It is quite a testament that he grew the business into a 27 shop dry cleaning chain before selling it!

What was clear from his talk is that there are opportunities all around, you just have to look for them. One of these opportunities presented when he found that leather gloves used for cleaning cars in the large car factories were disposed of after use. So he set about creating a machine capable of cleaning these leather gloves. Once successful he sold that business and moved on. What I liked best was the cling film and tin foil products which he turned around. Gone are the days of ripping cling film and tin foil from a serrated cardboard box. A simple re-design and hey-presto a more efficient delivery system. Even the boring first aid kit (small square green box, open it up and everything falls out). Re-design the traditional packaging, colour, shape and keep everything in place and you have a successful replacement for a product which has been on the market for years.

In concluding his talk with a question and answer session, Mr Benedetti acknowledged that even his daughter is an entrepreneur! Judging by recent media, we tend to view “entrepreneurs” as business types only. Yet the reality is a type of personality willing to take upon themselves a new venture and accept full responsibility for the outcome, whatever it may be. Alone but rarely acknowledged are all the artistically creative individuals out there who are all entrepreneurs too!

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Videoing with a Canon Powershot S5 IS

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

In the beginning, Festival Previews sourced its preview videos exclusively from the performers themselves for display on their promotional pages. Many fine videos are regularly received but since some groups touring the festivals haven’t yet put together a video, we decided to add some of our own. So last year, we went out to the Edinburgh Fringe and videoed many of the preview performances during week zero.

For this, I chose the Canon Powershot S5 IS (American readers, click here), which was new on the market last year. Normally one would buy a camcorder and stretch it when wanting still pictures but I decided to buy a still camera and stretch it to produce video. I read many reviews on the Powershot and it didn’t look like I would have to stretch it very far.

I must say, that I have found the Powershot to be an excellent camera, with loads of ability, including an 8 megapixel sensor. I’ve enjoyed photographing nature, meteor storms, even historic documents at the National Archives and under computer control from my laptop using the supplied software which enhances its abilities even further. You can read the detailed review which sold me on this camera here. I can say that I agree with all of this review’s findings.

So, how did the videoing go? Well, again I loved it for many reasons but I found that the darkened, spotlight theatre environments with clapping audiences are much more challenging than the likes of bright beaches that perhaps this camera’s video capabilities are targeted at. You can see for yourself in the Edinburgh 2007 video section of our blog, though bear in mind that the compression software used to squeeze the videos onto the website causes a little bit of degradation as well as presenting the video at half the original resolution. Here’s a summary of the good and bad points:

Pros

• Power, it uses 4 AA batteries and it’s easy (and cheap) to carry around a bag full of rechargeable AAs.
• Storage, it uses industry standard SD memory cards. I used an 8 GBytes card (class 6), with a 4 GByte card in the bag, just in case and my phone has a 2 GByte card, which I could also use in an emergency. 8 Gbytes gives you just over an hour at best quality recording and highest resolution, twice that on the lower quality setting and twice again on lower resolution. It also downloads to the pc much faster than a camcorder would using tape.
• Superb 12 x optical zoom lens, no need to be near the stage, I usually staked out a spot at the back, which makes side to side panning much more gentle.
• Portability, very lightweight compared to a reasonable quality camcorder. I encountered many burdened camera operators lugging their equipment between venues, during the Fringe.

Cons

• The world has gone wide screen but unfortunately the Powershot hasn’t, yet. I’m sure a firmware upgrade could add this. In the meantime, it produces videos with a maximum size of 640 x 480.
• The auto focus sometimes loses lock in the challenging conditions presented by the spotlight stages.
• To change the batteries or SD memory card, the camera has to be removed from the tripod and the tripod attachment removed from the camera to gain access to these items.
• There is no socket for external microphones, which limits your options, though the in-built stereo microphones are excellent under good conditions. Where I found a problem was filming in a park with a howling wind. The wind noise reduction facility doesn’t help much.
• Humourously, a feeling of inadequacy when surrounded by national TV network cameras, as one can be on the Fringe circuit!

So, with festival season approaching again in the northern hemisphere, I think I’ll look to acquire a wide screen prosumer camcorder. I’m very impressed by Canon products and I’ve started looking at the XH A1 (American readers, click here). I’ll post an update once I have bought one, hopefully in time for the Brighton Festival Fringe. My Canon Powershot is certainly not retired, it will be left to concentrate on what it does best, producing stunning, high resolution, wide screen stills.

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The Garage International

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Welcome to The Garage International

Come park your hopes and dreams with us and join us for the summer festivals. The Garage is a professional venue run by an international artist catering to the needs of an international artist. Our image is the eternal fire burning bright that destroys all boundaries and borders, social morals and taboos.

We invite the controversial and the radical as long as you believe in what you have to say and what you do. Also remember that the most tame traditional thing can be just as unique in this chaotic world.

In 1999 we were proud to host 30 companies from over 10 different countries in theatre, dance, music, physical theatre, mime, and marionette theatre. Every show got reviewed at least once. In 1998 we were the recipient of the ‘Spirit of the Fringe ‘ Award. In 1999, The Riot Group from New York received the Fringe First award for their disturbing and controversial theatre, ‘Wreck the Airline Barrier.’

This was Edinburgh where we started our venture. We then proceeded to the Avignon Public Off Festival in 2001 and then to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2002 and then to the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2003. And now 2007 October we have started the FIRST Tokyo Fringe Festival at the Shakti Studio!

Each festival and location has its own special feel and uniqueness about it. It is impossible to say which is better. All of them have a special place as all of us have a special place in this world. Since the Fringe in Edinburgh started in 1947, its motive and aim was to give a new experience to those who came, to share something special, to challenge and to dare to experiment, and not be afraid of failure. Though we may be starting to enter into a new era, this will never change. Artists have come from as far as the other side of the world to share their thoughts and dreams. Audience have come equally as far to listen.

The Garage International is here to receive and embrace all. We will keep growing, nourished by you – both artists and audience.

www.TheGarageInternational.com

Scotsman Article about The Garage International

You can also read Shakti’s answers in our10 Questions series.

Tags: Exotic dancer, Kyoto Fringe, Salome, Shakti, The Garage International, Tokyo Fringe
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