Kinklusive

Posted by Tanos on Mon 14 Nov 05, 12:46 PM to Tanos's blog.

I'm still on a huge high from the Kinklusive weekend and I want to write this down while it's fresh.

There's going to be a proper thankyou post to everyone who helped, but I've got to say how much the success of Saturday owned to the volunteers. The venue, Legends, was in use all weekend, first with Club Lash, then with Kinklusive and then with Manbears from Saturday evening. So we only had 1 hour before and after Kinklusive to get everything in and out, and to do the set up and tear down. But with all the volunteers pitching in, we got it all done on time, without messing up the start of Kinklusive or the Manbears. So thankyou, thankyou, thankyou

I've been thinking back to how it all started with this thread on IC back at the start of February, and how the communities in Manchester really did manage to come together and make something that was both truly pansexual (lili's fantastic "Kinklusive" name helped with selling that idea ) and also involved a big multi-workshop-and-stalls event on one of the days. I think it's been the first one like that outside London, and it ended up being a combination of options 1 and 2 in that thread.

As well as bringing the scenes together, I also hoped we'd be able to "publicise" the Manchester scenes to people outside the area by creating a "landmark" event, and that had quite a few success too: I'm so glad lots of people came here for Club Lash, and saw how cool an event it is, and got to see what an excellent BDSM space MUD is. And then there's the Manchester Fetish Map produced for the event, which does the same kind of thing with the shops (more straight people need to visit RoB and see what great gear they have!) We've got several thousand in the print run, so they'll also be around in the shops for a few more months, like a "megaflyer", telling people about SM Dykes, the Manchester Munch, Spanner, Club Lash, Backlash, Unfettered, the Women's Munch and IC, as well as the businesses that made it possible with sponsorship.

Now on to the workshops. Well, first I should say that I really enjoyed doing the one I took part in: Seraf, amira, lili and I doing bondage with steel, wood and leather. The girls wore black Zentai suits (another of lili's fantastic ideas) that covered them completely, and they really played up the comedy of it whilst showing off the steel again the black lycra. In fact, the "telesubbies" got so into it they ran round the stalls area afterwards, freaking people out and being generally mischievous

lili's ropework with amira in the Women Doing Rope session also had my jaw dropping (she does most of her ropework at women only events, so I don't get to see it that often) and the effort she put into the Kinklusive Klinic at MUD on Sunday also really paid off: she always prepares really well, knows her stuff cold, and backs it all up with explanations.

I didn't get to see the cutting or sounds demos (I was on the door for the first half in my "spotty house officer" outfit ) but they went down really well, and having MUD as the venue, let us navigate around the licensing worries that always plague events subject to Manchester City Council's authority, whilst going that bit further than we could on Saturday.

All in all, a great weekend - thanks everyone