Registration and coffee

Welcome
Keynote speech: Emma Stenning, Executive Director, Bristol Old Vic opens the day

Pen-ultimate, Contact and the Albany present A Night on the Tiles
Pen-ultimate burst onto the scene with their debut show set in a seedy underworld where gangsters, high-rollers and con-men compete in a high stakes Scrabble game to end them all. A Night on the Tiles mixes tightly woven wordplay with send-ups of heist, caper and kung fu movies in an epic tale of violence, revenge and Devonshire cream teas.

With dramaturgy from the sharpened pen of US Hip Hop Theatre pioneer Will Power and directed by Montserrat Gili of the internationally acclaimed Dende Collective, the show is a unique and groundbreaking combination of spoken word, black comedy and theatre.

Pen-ultimate is a diverse collective of nationally and internationally recognised poets, actors, MCs and playwrights – Ben Mellor, Ali Gadema AKA Frisko Dan, Martin Stannage AKA Visceral and Samira Arhin-Acquaah AKA Lucidity.

Seminars
Attend one seminar or showcase from the following – choose on the day:

Seminar 1 - Selling Live Literature to Audiences.
Selling Live Literature to Audiences will reveal the tricks and techniques our panel have used to entice audiences to live literature and spoken word events. They’ll discuss their own methods for success and invite participants to do the same. With poet and performer Charlie Dark, ex-Manchester Poetry Festival Director and promoter of writing talent Ric Michael, Artistic Director of the Albany, Gavin Barlow and Head of Development and Communications at the Albany, Tracy Brunt.

OR

Seminar 2 - Digital Selling - How to?
Join London Word Festival Director, poet and live literature impresario Tom Chivers and Julia Payne, Director of the hub, a dynamic and entrepreneurial arts and creative enterprise development practice, for a ‘how to’ session on marketing live literature including using digital and viral methods.

Lunch
with facilitated networking (gentle and optional)

RETURN
Polarbear, mac and BAC in association with the Albany present the premiere of 'RETURN' - Part 1

Noah returns to a place he had to leave, a place in which he didn’t belong. Now he has to fit back into a world where much feels the same, but where everything has changed.

Polarbear takes his audience on a spoken-word journey, visualising scenes and landscapes orally to conjure up our deepest imaginings of how to fit in a place we once called home. ‘RETURN’ is at once a film, a homecoming, a story of return, loss and memory; the ultimate campfire tale.

Seminars
Attend one seminar or showcase from the following – choose on the day:

Seminar 1 - Selling Live Literature to Audiences.
What makes a venue buy a live literature show from a producer? Hear from Kate McGrath, producer of poet Inua Ellams’ first full-length show The 14th Tale, profiled at our first Lit Up event in June, which, after a successful autumn tour will find itself on the National Theatre’s stage for a short run this spring. How did Kate McGrath sell spoken word to the National? Hear, too, from Kate Tull, an independent live literature producer about her experiences of selling literature tours to venues and from Richard Morgan, Producer of the Royal Exchange Studio Theatre in Manchester, who bought some of her shows.

OR

Seminar 2 - Digital Selling - How to?
Join London Word Festival Director, poet and live literature impresario Tom Chivers and Julia Payne, Director of the hub, a dynamic and entrepreneurial arts and creative enterprise development practice, for a ‘how to’ session on marketing live literature including using digital and viral methods.

OR

Associate Artists’ showcase
Lit Up has eight Associate Artists, and each one has been partnered with one of the eight venues who make up the Lit Up consortium. In their time as Associate Artists, each of them has worked on a short performance piece and the work you will see presented is at different stages of development for each artist. This session is a platform for these artists, some emerging, some more established, to share their ideas of live literature and their styles with you.

Maxwell Golden presents CountryBoy's Struggle Love conflicts with ambition in a Hip Hop loving hippy's attempt to make it in the London Grime scene. From relocation, through open mics, and farcical showcases; CountryBoy surfs the ups and downs of attempted fame with varying degrees of success until a nationwide radio interview exposes the truth he's been avoiding. A comedic multi-character piece with original music production from danbeat.

Charlie Jordan presents 'Buddhism and Ben & Jerrys - how to survive heartbreak'. This is the first show written by Charlie Jordan. A touching and humorous story of how to heal a broken heart without hitting the bottle or hitting on every man you meet.

Steve Tasane presents Wriot! Inspired by Punk and P-Funk Steve takes performance poetry to its outer limit. Ranging from straight-forward, finely honed stand-up poetry to multi-voiced musical wordscapes. As well as being sartorially psychedelic, this really is a Wriot! of words.

Break

Marketing and networking
The Live Literature Consortium of venues has brought its marketing teams here today and they have spent the day exploring the ins and outs, ups and downs of marketing live literature. In this hour they will join you to offer you two live literature marketing proposals – one for Polarbear’s ‘RETURN’ and one for Pen-ultimate’s A Night on the Tiles.

You can take the conversation from here. Do you agree with what they have said? Have you tried something different? Use this hour to plant your own ideas or harvest the marketing expertise of others.

This is how they would sell it. Are you buying?

RETURN
Polarbear, mac and BAC in association with the Albany present the premiere of 'RETURN' - Part 2

Noah returns to a place he had to leave, a place in which he didn’t belong. Now he has to fit back into a world where much feels the same, but where everything has changed.

Polarbear takes his audience on a spoken-word journey, visualising scenes and landscapes orally to conjure up our deepest imaginings of how to fit in a place we once called home. ‘RETURN’ is at once a film, a homecoming, a story of return, loss and memory; the ultimate campfire tale.

Drinks reception