KeithD
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Sutton ColdFest, 19 July - 2008/05/30 12:28
The Jakefest at Sutton Coldfield is definitely, officially on! Apologies for the delay while negotiations were concluded.
Those of you who were at York, The Tramshed, Great Torrington, Edinburgh or Scarborough will know what to expect. For anyone else, you can expect to enjoy interpretations of Jake's songs from a range of performers drawn from this community, in the company of fellow Jakesters and Thackolites. Apart from the two people who walked out at Torrington because The Kiss was "smutty", I don't know of anyone who has been disappointed.
Date: Saturday 19 July
Venue: Highbury Theatre Centre, Sheffield Road, Sutton Coldfield, B73 5HD http://www.highburytheatre.co.uk/
There will be two performances:
2 to 4 pm Mainly new and less-familiar performers with a leavening of older hands
7:30 to 11 pm Mainly older hands with a sprinkling of new and less-familiar performers
Both events will be in the 140-seat main auditorium (wheelchairs by arrangement).
Tickets for the evening performance are £8. Book them from Neil Weedon by e-mail or post (details at the foot of this message). From 1 July tickets will be on sale to the general public, and the event will be well advertised locally, so get yours in June, when they're available exclusively to this community.
Tickets for the matinée will be £2 on the door. Do turn up if possible. Meet like-minded people, support rising stars, enjoy new interpretations, and maybe hear some of the less-well-known songs from the older hands.
We also have use of the rehearsal room for the day and are hoping to stage workshops for performers and - hopefully - screen a video of a Jake gig. Details once firm.
Saturday 19 July is the Highbury Theatre Centre's annual Open Day, so there will be plenty to see and do between the matinée and the main performance. The website says: "See the Centre at work. Highbury Players will be performing works by new authors". There will also be dancing, poetry readings and art exhibitions between 10 am and 4 pm, and at 4 pm on the main stage there will be a band performing live music, with Neil Weedon on guitar and vocals.
Food will be available at the theatre throughout the day. Details will follow, but expect a buffet (probably cold), with cakes and confectionery. The bar will be open all day; real ale has been requested but not yet confirmed.
The theatre is a ten-minute drive from M6 junction 5, and a five-minute walk from Chester Road rail station (15 minutes from Birmingham New Street). For more directions and information on parking, see the theatre website.
There is plenty of local accommodation within easy driving distance. For information on local small hotels and B&Bs contact Neil. If there is sufficient demand, Neil will speak to a couple of local non-chain hotels and see if he can arrange a deal. Alternatively, Google Maps will list plenty if you go to B73 5HD and Search Businesses for B&B or Hotels.
Baggsy lists will be requested from potential performers in the next day or so.
Many thanks on behalf of the community to Neil Weedon for organising the venue and making all the necessary arrangements. Contact Neil for tickets or accommodation advice:
E-mail: neil(dot)weedon(at)gmail(dot)com (replace the bits in brackets . . . you know)
Post: Neil Weedon
25 West View Road
Sutton Coldfield
West Midlands
B75 6AY
(Cross-posted to the other Jake sites)
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Malcy
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Baggsy Call - Sutton ColdFest, 19 July - 2008/05/31 15:45
Hail and Well Met, Thacksters all !
This is the official call for Baggsy Lists. If you want to play up to three songs at the Sutton Coldfield JakeFest, you are invited to mail malcolm (dot) jeffrey (at) virgin (dot) net with your "baggsy" list of the songs that you can do, in your preferred order of song.
This year, however, there are a few changes, and I'll explain after.
If you want to play a set of up to three Jake numbers at the Fest, we need you to :
a) Tell me all of the songs that you can do (including those on the list below), in the order that you would prefer them to appear in your set. To help distribute the really popular ones fairly, you will only get one from this list -
Sister Josephine
Brother Gorilla
Bantam Cock
Leopold Alcocks
Jolly Captain
The Hole
Worried Brown-Eyes
Lah-Di-Dah
The Lodger
The Bull
On Again ! On Again !
- and as many close to the top of your list as we can.
b) Tell me if you want a full set of three songs or if you would prefer a shorter set.
c) This year you have until Jun 21st - three weeks from today - to mail me and then the entries will be closed : there will be no "first past the post" (or "first in Malcy's In Box") order of preference. Instead, we'll be allocating songs more randomly with a series of draws, and also using a ballot to help determine which player performs at the matinee or on the evening performance.
And here's why !
The JakeFests have been running in one way or another since 2002 and started off as a means of satisfying one of the original aims of the Jake Thackray Project – to get Jake's songs performed in public again and to allow performers to learn and play his songs. In this respect it has been particularly successful : early gatherings had one or two
performers, but with the Project's success in getting Jake's recordings back in the shops, and on the radio and television, the number of performers has grown steadily. At the last JakeFest in Scarborough we had approaching twenty players, many first-time performers, and there is now a potential pool of over thirty players who have performed, either intermittently or regularly, at the JakeFests.
In the past, we have attempted to get everyone on who wishes to play, and by a policy of first-past-the-post baggsy lists and careful allocation of the songs requested it has usually been possible. However, if a large percentage of the available players submit baggsy lists for a JakeFest in the future, there is a risk of having to turn people away or make the sets so small – one or two songs – that only the most hardcore player would cross the country for a 10 minute spot. At Scarborough, with twenty people, we tried to keep to three songs each but both evenings overran, even given a 7:30pm start and an 11pm finish to the show. With sets of three numbers each and maybe only room for 40 songs on an evening, there is, practically, only room for 16 players on any show and we are in danger of exceeding those numbers now that the Fests are so successful.
So we've tried to come up with a fair, new system which allows as many people as possible to perform, given the numbers of players we currently attract. The main thing we can do is to, wherever possible, include a "matinee" performance, which will double the size of the potential cast across two shows, and we're doing this with the Brum JakeFest : and the existing baggsying system is fairly well established and usually allocates a player most of their requested set. However, we need a fair system of deciding who gets to play in which of the two shows : the first-come, first-served emailing system has always favoured people who check e-mails and message boards more regularly than others who may only check once a week, so that was overdue for an overhaul anyway, and more so with the increasing numbers of players. Some of you may know that I'm a Marathon runner, and it struck me that a similar way of allocating spaces in an oversubscribed event to that used by the London Marathon could be used. When entering the London Marathon, priority is given to people who have been rejected more frequently over recent entries, and a time limit for applications followed by a lottery-style draw for places is employed.
So here is our plan ! The baggsy list for the 2008 JakeFest is now open, and interested performers are invited to mail me at the above address with your preferred set lists, in order of preference. If you do more than three songs, let me know all of them, as it makes dishing out songs easier if your more preferred songs are already gone, but three songs will always be given as a spot unless you wish a set of two or one songs. You have until Jun 21st - three weeks from today - to mail me and then the entries will be closed. :o) The usual list of songs which are so popular that everyone wants to sing them still applies, so you will only get one of the following songs in your set, as close to the top of your order of preference as possible :
Sister Josephine
Brother Gorilla
Bantam Cock
Leopold Alcocks
Jolly Captain
The Hole
Worried Brown-Eyes
Lah-Di-Dah
The Lodger
The Bull
On Again ! On Again !
This is primarily to allow any new players with a smaller repertoire to still have songs left that they can sing by rationing out the famous ones that we all started off with. "The Bull" and "On Again !" are included because they are the two songs often chosen as a grand finale, so if you pick one of these and it gets chosen for the finale on that show, you won't get the song as an individual song in your set.
Then we will draw a random list of players for each performance. If you would prefer to play on the main night or on the afternoon show, please indicate this in your e-mail. This is the part where we try to satisfy the needs of the audience as well : more recently, the fests have been attracting paying members of the public (who will be expecting a predominantly slick show) as well as those of us in the groundswell of the society, so we feel that the selection of players for the evening show should favour a higher ratio of more experienced players, while the earlier show should be more of an open-mike affair
for all-comers. Any players who find that the draw has been unkind to them and they've been asked to play in the earlier show (I've been accepted by the London Marathon ballot 12 times and rejected 13 times) will be given preference for the main show of the next fest, and all attempts will be made to guarantee their choice of set there as compensation. Yes, I know it's not perfect, but there are simply too many people potentially interested in playing on a JakeFest nowadays to get everyone on on the one bill with a decent length of set. The Draws will be made using separate input from several people to have it as transparent and above board as possible.
Malcy
Post edited by: Malcy, at: 2008/05/31 15:49
Eranu ! |
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KeithD
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Re:Sutton ColdFest, 19 July - 2008/06/11 13:01
It would help if you included an SAE when sending a cheque to Neil to pay for tickets.
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Malcy
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Re:Baggsy Call - Sutton ColdFest, 19 July - 2008/06/24 19:08
Hi, All !
I had a few enquiries early this week from Jakesters who wish to play at the upcoming BrumFest on July 19th, saying "Why haven't I been mailed about my Baggsy List yet ?" so here's a prod in case anyone was expecting the personal touch ! :o)
The call for performers' Baggsy lists has been open since May following the usual posting on JT.com, Topica and Yahoo, so if YOU plan to play at the Fest you need top submit your list of songs to me by the end of this week. Please tell me which Jake songs you can play, in the order you'd prefer to have them given you, and this weekend a draw will take for the lists. Full details are below and on the main page of http://www.jakethackray.com/
Hurry ! Time is, indeed, of the essence !
Malcy
Eranu ! |
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KeithD
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Re:Baggsy Call - Sutton ColdFest, 19 July - 2008/06/26 11:44
As Malcy says: Time is, indeed, of the essence.
Ticket sales are going well, and a sell-out is on the cards. If you plan to attend and haven't ordered your tickets yet, you should bear in mind that next Tuesday, 1 July, tickets will go on sale to the general public. The Centre is a popular and well-supported local venue, and July 19 is its annual Open Day, so write to Neil now to avoid disappointment. And please include an SAE. Contact and other details are in the first post in this topic.
Cross-posted to Topica and Yahoo!
Post edited by: KeithD, at: 2008/06/26 11:48
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