Can you believe it? Two months have passed since the last Blog! Yikes………. And so much has happened.
Where to
start to catch up with myself?
Let’s start
with Live at The Trades. The Autumn / Winter programme has gone from
strength to strength, with amazing support from the music lovers of Rotherham,
whom have bought tickets to see some of the best Regional Bands around. Good news for the Live at The Trades project
is that we have averaged well over the targeted audience numbers demanded by
the Club Management.
Week nights
are not good though, our two arm twisted experiments on a Friday night with
well-known and established Club acts were not rousing successes and Internationally
acclaimed Billy Walton Band drew very few people on what was a wet Tuesday
night.
RAE have
promoted under the Live at The Trades an amazing range of music, from the
Staying Alive Bee Gees tribute to the hard rock of Hellbent Forever’s tribute
to Judas Priest. We’ve promoted
commercial covers rock with Lovehunter’s tribute to Whitesnake, through to an
evening of local bands Headlined by Goat Leaf.
All with equal success.
Of course we
have been hindered by the fact that we have been unable to publicise our events
affectively as the Club had consistently refused until very recently to allow
adverts in The Advertiser, broadly recognised as the place to be seen.
Our
evaluations of the evenings show that there is a hard core of around 15 – 20
who will come to most of our events, but that in the main, unlike the normal
Club audience, we bring in a majority of new people depending upon the music or
act appearing. Another strange thing is
the number of people coming who thought that The Trades was closed!! It shows that we need to double our efforts
to get our message across.
We are
mindful that our evenings have to be of the highest quality as we are the only
venue where the public is being asked to buy tickets – we do not have the
luxury that other promoters have of bar revenue to subsidise any mistakes we
might make. However, when we have put on a free event on,
and there have been several throughout the year to meet our commitment to the
venue’s Management they have fallen flat on their face in terms of audience
numbers.
We finish
our Autumn / Winter programme on Saturday 21st when we host the
second of our Parties, an extravagant 80’s night with fantastic Tribute Band, The Neurythmics and former Adam and Eve
(a legendary Rotherham venue of yesteryear) DJ creating a great Christmas
atmosphere. Tickets available from The
Trades, The Drop In Centre and Online – but book quick because the tickets are
going fast. I am holding only a limited
number for on the door sales. And
there’s a raffle – top prize a Season Ticket to our Winter Spring Programme, worth
£60 (£75 without season purchase discount) , and there are some top nights
coming.
After the
Neurythmics we’re taking a short break for the Christmas and New Year
festivities but we’re back in mid-January with “1MASSIVE An evening of epic
enjoyment”. Once again RAE is at the
cutting edge of music with this fund raiser as it falls outside of our normal
demographic and genre expectation.
Tickets are £3 and will be available from the Drop In and Trades just
before Christmas or Online HERE from
next week.
And then
we’re into our Winter / Spring Programme – wow.
We kick off with arguably the best Queen Tribute Band on the European circuit;
tickets have been priced at “bargain” levels to celebrate the start of the Live
at The Trades new season. We have some
of the best local Bands, only amazing tribute Bands, and some vintage class in
the form of a return visit from Chris Slade’s Time Line and Lena Lovich making
a Rotherham debut. The full programme
can be seen HERE and some tickets
are already available from the Drop In / The Trades and Online HERE
In fact on
Saturday nights the transfer of audiences between The Bridge and The Trades and
visa versa has been great to see.
While I’ve
been away from the key board it’s worth noting that SNAFU has closed and then relocated and opened again. A visit from me looks a little unlikely, in
fact any disabled person is going to have the devil’s own job to get in (unless
they have a muscular friend who can carry them up numerous flights of
stairs) I feel sorry for Bands who have
to get their kit up to the new venue.
But it’s great that Rotherham has not lost a venue.
In fact
we’ve gained one, as the Mail Coach
is to feature Bands on Friday nights – and by all accounts when The Cutlers re-opens that too will be
featuring live music.
And well
done Tony Gooder’s Goodwin, whom has successfully launched the Pitman Poets Open Mic Night at the
Mexborough Concertina Club. The next
time that the Club will be coming to the surface is 16th January. Full
details HERE
Acoustic
music – yes acoustic music. Those
who have been with me long enough will remember those days when this
Blog was full of nothing but Acoustic news as I travelled around terrifying the
Open Mics and Folk Clubs of South Yorkshire.
Well I have news. Touch wood,
but someone has volunteered to take over the organisation of Acoustic Rotherham – more news about
that soon. The other good news is that
the monthly Acoustic Warm Down at
the Titans Club, featuring the brilliant Swansong Acoustic as hosts is gaining
in popularity every month. December
29th the Club will be functioning as usual with the Special
Guest being Jake Sharpe.
If you would
like to be considered to play at the Acoustic
Rotherham 26th January, then please contact us HERE.
According to my fingers we have around three places left.
There’s been
another influx of fresh blood into the RAE general organisation, the result,
changes galore.
The Drop In Centre, 25 Wellgate is now open SIX days a week. Hours remain 11 – 3, although on Tuesday and
Wednesday it will open and close a little earlier, and on Saturdays, it may
close at 2:00pm on Live at The Trades nights.
Besides our
now established Craft Workshops, we now offer budget Guitar Lessons and other
Workshops. We also have a serious
Amateur Photographic Club, “Snappers” who will meet on occasional Saturdays.
The look of
the Drop In will be changing quite a
bit over the Christmas / New Year period.
We hope to have Phil Padfield’s
excellent spray painting work created
during the Rotherham Street Arts Festival up onto a wall where everyone will be
able to admire it. Who knows we might
even have a bit of a Party when it is done.
And that’s
not the only thing that will be changing.
Our network of Web Sites will
be undergoing major surgery and a facelift.
While the look of the sites have changed from time to time I’ve not
weeded the sites very much nor organised information into a more obvious home. Don’t worry you’ll be introduced to the
changes as they happen – if you have a
favourite or useful page that you would like us to keep then please Email us HERE
In the
meantime, for those searching out that perfect stocking filler for the “folkie”
in your life are bound to find something to tickle the old ear buds amongst
David Kidman’s bumper Christmas Review Collection which you can find HERE
Our
association with the wordsmiths of Rotherham continues and you’ll find a
magnificent Christmas Word Pit HERE
– we even have contributions from the USA……………. Word Pit goes International
Slamfest
planning is well underway. Our detailed
guide to advertising at the event can be found HERE or if you would like to become a sponsor of the Event you can
find out about the packages available HERE
We have
already announced the headline acts for the Clifton Park stages. Ed
Tenpole Tudor Pole and Eddie and The Hotrods and I can promise that our
line up for the Saturday is just as exciting, but you have to wait for our Mick
to make the announcement. These folks
are supported by one of the best line ups of local Bands that we one can
imagine; in fact we have been so inundated with requests to play that it has
been hard fitting everyone in. Mick
tells me that he’ll be finding a stage for those not on the main stages though
so never fear, any Rotherham Band wanting to play at the Festival will get the
chance.
We need volunteers though to help with
the Management of the event so contact us HERE
if you want to be part of this great weekend.
We have a
full Volunteer Training Programme under development, which we hope will cover
all the major events with which RAE will be involved in during 2014. Amanda’s Blinds will be Sponsoring Volunteers
in 2014.
The Rotherham Culture Group has
undergone some changes following it’s AGM.
Chair for 2011/13 Sameer has run away to Manchester, and will be greatly
missed amongst the Arts community in Rotherham; Dad Hamid has a new time
consuming project at work and so has surrendered the Web Site duties; and
Nameer had resigned his Treasurers role earlier in the year. All had done a super job in moving the
Culture Group forward.
ROMPs Sharon has taken up the financial
role, Sylwia (RAE / Diamond Velocity)
has taken on the Secretaries job and I’ve taken the Chair until the Group has
settled down again.
This
transition period for the Rotherham Culture Group is going to be crucial to
it’s future viability and also in defining through the dissemination of
services to the multi-cultural art Communities in Rotherham.
The next meeting of The Rotherham Culture
Group is on Monday 6th January (2014) at 4:30pm at MyPlace on
St.Annes. It’s open to all and the
Agenda is already looking towards The Diversity Festival at The Rotherham Show
in September.
If you think
that you would like to be involved in a multi-cultural Group forging artistic
links across the Communities in Rotherham then we want to hear from you then Email HERE for more information.
As suggested
above, RAE are launching a Season Ticket
for the 2014 Live at The Trades Winter / Spring Programme. The £60 price tag represents a 20% saving on
ticket face values – so a worthwhile investment. Available from the Drop In Centre. Or Email HERE
Everything
that I know of pre and post-Christmas can be found on the December listing page HERE, including
a link to the excellent Rotherham Civic Pantomime, Beauty and the Beast, ticket Office. Tickets appear to be selling very fast so I’d
get my booking in now.
And that
just about wraps it all up, except to push you towards shopping local for those
Christmas gifts, remember it’s FREE
PARKING in Rotherham up to Christmas.
Why not also pop in to Drop In, we’ve got CDs for sale from local Bands,
and Poetry Books and some great Art, + NEW in the Old Town Hall building many
of the crafters associated with RAE are selling their work in Something Special, along with some
other fine craft gifts.
That’s it
for this one.
Whatever you
are doing, have fun, support your local artists, and KEEP IT LIVE