Fests and Fringes in Manchester (69)

It's probably misleading to compare ourselves with the big fests / conventions you see in the US, but we can look at Birmingham with the BBB running month in, month out for years (with regular and well-attended workshops / demos), and London with it's annual Pervefest/KinkFest and the long weekend of Skin Two events.

That kind of headline event that people want to travel to has never really got going here. We might be able to blame past politics, and the attitude of the city council towards BDSM events hasn't helped.

But on the other hand, there are some sexuality events happening and succeeding: the SM Dykes "International Women's SM Conference" has run for two years, I believe there is a PolyCon in Manchester later this spring, and BiCon has been here a couple of times. And of course the big one is the Pride Week, centered on the gay village in late August. (In fact last year there was effectively a "Fetish Fringe" happening, with pansexual events organised around the time of the Pride Week.)

So what could we in and around Manchester do about this?

1) Try to do a repeat of Unfettered's KinkFest event in London last December. Unfettered are looking for local partners, and KinkFest was a lot of fun

To avoid opening up new political divisions, I'd suggest running things as a Manchester event to which groups like Unfettered, ReviseF65, Spanner Trust and SM Pride are invited to participate or even to organise a section of the proceedings themselves. (Maybe that's naive of me.)

The downside is that you need a biggish venue (hundreds of people) and need to organise it properly, deal with any licensing issues etc.

2) Try to build something around the existing Pride Week, as a "Manchester Fetish Fringe". That way it's an event / fest that's "advertised rather than organised", so no one group of people are having to try to run everything. Unfettered, SM Pride, Spanner etc can organise anything they want, but there's still an identifiable BDSM "thing" going on, that people would make an effort to get to.

That has the advantage that there's less politics, and people organising their own individual events is more manageable than one big 500-in-one-building event. It also means it would be easier to get people from organisations like ReviseF65 and Spanner who are likely to be around anyway, and it promotes cross-over between the various straight, bi and gay scenes. It also brings in existing Pride Week events like Lash for Lasses.

3) We just continue with what we have, and let it grow organically here and there (LifeStyle-UK has had demos and stalls, the Couch Club and Nemesis are starting to do that.)

What do you think? Is there local support to work on organising something bigger than that what we have?

Tanos

(who isn't trying to organise anything himself, but is happy to help advertise things of course)

Edited Thu 3 Feb 05, 7:00 PM by Tanos

Personally, I like the idea of lots of small events scattered around the fringe rather than one big bash, which logistically could be really difficult to organise.

I and Perverted would be willing to muck in and help out, albeit on a limited level, if anything goes ahead. We'd be happy to do a demo or peer workshop for example.

I would be willing to assist. I am aware that this would be a large undertaking, but SM Dykes already have experience in this area so at least we could get some assistance and a base to start from?

Thats my thoughts on it.

So it's a London event then ?? *grins*

ggx

Do it trembling if you must, but do it.

Erm Im sure it is needed and Im happy to help in anyway I can with whatever is happening

gg

Do it trembling if you must, but do it.

{najla}S

Thanks

Tanos

Sounds good L^R and I hope to have interesting news for the Sunday Meeting after my Meeting tomorrow night

^Thunder^ West Essex & East London Munch in Ilford 4th Wednesday each month. http://www.ukessex.org.uk http://groups.msn.com/UKEssx

anyways...all sounds good!

k

"Dont close your eyes and picture me as perfect. Open your eyes and see whats in front of you. Im not perfect.. Im Me.. a woman and a human being."

Yes, I think we need to come up with something that doesn't leave out any of the various groups doing things in Manchester.

A lot of it is centred on www.mscmsc.org.uk

I seem to remember the teddy bear men for some reason

www.manbears.co.uk (no beard comments, ok, Katena? )

And Legends/Outpost/Tunnel (ie Lash's venue) is used for several of the leather events.

Maybe we could talk about some of these ideas at the LifestyleUK munch tomorrow?

Tanos

Edited 4 Feb 05, 10:25 AM by Tanos

www.londonfetishscene.com
www.unfettered.co.uk