There seems to be a lot of noise recently about how Birmingham, the UK’s second city, is lacking “respect” from event organisers in numerous disciplines; notably for me – web and movies. Also, it seems Birmingham isn’t able to cultivate thriving communities which are found in other cities such as London and Brighton. What I would like to know is why?
Carsonified have just announced their new 2009 Future of Web Design tour, arriving at four UK cities. Considering the event is missing London (as the main event is held there), you would think that the UK’s second city, especially because it is located so centrally and with great transport links, would be a certainty. You would be wrong. This is the second Carsonified roadtrip of the year and again it avoided Birmingham. Why?
London has some major web-standards orientated conferences such as @media, which has been going for six years, and this year will see UX London. Brighton hosts Clearleft’s grassroots dConstruct conference, which is in it’s fifth year. Both London and Brighton also have well-known and vibrant web and design related communities and those conferences reflect that. But why doesn’t Birmingham?
This article has been all about why Birmingham is being ignored for digital media, especially considering Digital Birmingham is aiming to “make Birmingham a leading European digital city by 2010” and the answer is; I don’t know.
There are a lot of events and discussions in and around Birmingham being held every month, but nothing seems to have gelled together in to a more formally recognised “scene”, such as those in Brighton or London. The Multipack is a group I’ve been heavily involved with since it’s inception in 2005. It is a great community of multi-talented Web professionals from across the West Midlands and we meet every month to discuss design, code, standards and technology, and share our knowledge, skills and talents. Recently we have branched out from our very informal pub-orientated meetings to create Multipack Presents. “Presents” is a completely free event open for anyone wanting to attend.
The Multipack is only a small part of a potential solution. Stuart Langridge started an interesting topic titled “A Birmingham scene” on the Multipack forum, asking the same question I have just been — why. There are some great replies and ideas on how to solve the problem the forgotten Birmingham.
This avoidance of Birmingham can also be found in other areas of the arts. I an an avid movie watcher, but I have very limited choice of what I can watch at the cinema. If the movie isn’t part of a majorly distributed release I probably won’t be able to see it on the big screen. Dave Harte has published some thoughts, which mirror mine, of the state of cinema in Birmingham;
The list of non-London cities showing Charlie Kaufman’s highly-rated new film Synecdoche, New York in the week of its release include: Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, Norwich, Edinburgh, Glasgow. Birmingham’ not up there.
Again, I simply can not understand why Birmingham is completely ignored for decent movie distribution. Dave Harte chaired a discussion, held at Fazeley Studios, to debate and create an action plan to get art house and non mainstream movies in to Birmingham.
There is a lot wrong with the media scene in Birmingham, but there are a lot of people investing a lot of their free time to help improve the situation. What do you think?
Comments
sil
Website
Monday 8th June 2009
Just as soon as my house sells and I move to the centre of Birmingham, I'm going to be putting quite a lot of effort into rectifying this…
Andy Clarke
Website
Tuesday 9th June 2009
We will also be coming to Birmingham as one of the cities in the next batch of For A Beautiful Web workshops. We are still deciding which topic to teach that day; Microformats, CSS, accessibility or design. Which do you think would be the most popular?
Steve Heyes
Website
Tuesday 9th June 2009
I think what you say is true. Another area is gigs. A large number of small bands, either unsigned or signed to an indie label, don't usually pop to Birmingham. I am unsure why this is, apart from that they think no one would go. That or there is no one that set up a gig for them.
And I think there are similarities with the web scene ( I apologise, but I don't know much about the film world ) I think it needs (a) people to set it up and (b) people to actually go. I think that (a) is defo happening, and esp with sites such as digitalbrum.co.uk giving an easy to find list of events going on, this is becoming less of a problem.
As for (b), well I think that since this conversation of a lack of a web scene has gained pace that we should see more people become aware and get involved. I have been thinking about how to get more people coming, and then realised I've only been to one Multipack event myself! So until I actually start going to stuff I am not in position to say anything about this!
But this on going conversation is definitely good. People are getting on board and want to rectify it. I will be moving back into the centre for my final year of uni and hope to get to more stuff. I think that as the conversation continues and people get more involved we may see something develop.
I don't think we are going to the same as Brighton and London in the next month or so. It will obv take some time to build stuff up and get followers etc.
As for the FABW workshops, I would suggest Microformats but that is only because I know very little about them!
Andy
Website
Tuesday 9th June 2009
The conversation that appears to have been stimulated by these questions in the past few weeks has been good and useful, and I hope it gains momentum.
Since I moved closer to the centre of town I have discovered there are hidden music scenes (despite what I had thought previously), but like web - it appears to be disparate and very low key.
Regarding this - I agree with Steve - it's a long term thing, and getting people talking/concerned about the lack of cohesiveness and overlap is important.
See, events like Hello Digital (2008) should have gone someway to galvanise the (a) community, but I attended a couple of the talks and left without feeling I hadn't engaged with anyone I normally wouldn't. It seemed passive, but maybe that was my fault.
I can't make the next Presents event (much to my regret) but I have signed up for Moseley BarCamp (alongside other Multipackers I see) which hopefully will facilitate some degree of cross over.
I think Birmingham (+ locality) is unfortunate in having been regarded as somewhere that isn't extraordinary. This perception by the wider world is that it is still a down trodden industrial city means it lacks significance other than as a shopping destination (and even then other cities can claim that too).
I think perceptions can change. Newcastle, Sheffield and Manchester all stand out as examples in my mind.
Tom Martin
Website
Friday 12th June 2009
You assume that Birmingham was left out because it's rubbish, there could be any number of reasons why it wasn't included in these four dates (time, money, people, resources, schedules). Given that this is the first 'tour', Carsonified probably picked cities which it a) knows well b) knows people at and c) knows about venues. Organising events is hard, organising events in different cities on different dates is even harder.
If you want some of these events to happen, then start organising them, Perhaps the next Geek in the Park could actually be in Birmingham?
trovster
Website
Friday 12th June 2009
@sil; I look forward to seeing that happen. Unfortunately I won't be a major part of it, as Birmingham is about 40 minutes away and for me personally, not that readily available for evening events.
@Andy; glad you're choosing Birmingham to host one of your events. I have no doubt they turn out will pretty solid and in comparison with anything you've organised before.
@Steve; With respect to gigs, I find the Academy pretty decent for a medium sized venue. But I remember back in the late '90s places like The Foundry and other small venues which attracted the smaller bands, yet they've seemed to have disappeared (or I simply do not know about them). I don't know why label's would assume people wouldn't turn up, Birmingham seems like a city full of an alternative crowd, and many would go.
@Tom; I don't assume anything, I'm just asking the question 'why', and simply stating some of the concerns I have. There could be many reasons, yes, I'm sure and organising events can be difficult – I agree – but it's part of their business, so I'm sure they're better equipped that you or me.
With regards to holding Geek in the Park in Birmingham, well, it's an interesting proposition. Firstly, I don't know Birmingham that well (there are your points a and c), and I would quite like to hold it in the same town as previous years – which is what I'm planning on doing this year.
I think all the groups holding events are great, but as Andy mentioned, there needs to be more cross-over, conversation and interaction between them. Again, I'm not in Birmingham that often, so I'm not always up-to-date on what's happening or what crossover – if any – is happening; but I don't think there is much.
Conversations need striking and I'm sure that is all that is needed. Only time will tell.