Launching Low Four Studio

This week, our good friends at online music TV platform Low Four launched a new recording studio and venue on Deansgate Mews at Great Northern Warehouse, with a bar from Cloudwater; we are proud to be an official supporter of the studio and have loved looking after the communications campaign for the announcement.

Low Four officially opened with a live streamed show from Manchester electro-punk-rockers W.H.Lung (no relation) which was incredibly well attended and an amazing night was had by all; after such a long time, it was refreshing to see live music in such an intimate venue, and inspiring to see a forward thinking, innovative studio emerge from the pandemic and set off on a new journey.

The studio released a preview session with Francis Lung, recorded this summer, featuring six tracks from his second album ‘Miracle’ released by Memphis Industries earlier this year, as part of the launch.

Low Four produces high quality, live-streamed and pre-recorded content to spotlight Manchester, supporting its international reputation for music and culture, by showcasing exceptional emerging local talent alongside nationally and internationally recognised touring acts.

Originally launched in 2016, Low Four’s first home was the old recording and dubbing suite at the old Granada Studios site on Quay St until redevelopment began. On Deansgate Mews, they will be joining a growing community of new artisan businesses that include Holy Grain Bakery, The Butcher’s Quarter, Dormouse Chocolate, Three Hands Deli and Another Hand Restaurant.

Previously, Low Four has worked with a vast array of acts, including live streaming performances from the likes of Everything Everything, Alexis Taylor, This is the Kit, Mew and Poliça; recorded albums for GoGo Penguin, Dutch Uncles and Francis Lung, and collaborated with organisations from the Hallé Orchestra to Manchester Science Festival.

The studio will resume its talent development scheme which includes free studio and production development time awarded to Manchester’s most promising artists. Alongside musical talent, the project will also nurture technical skills, most notably through its partnership with the University of Salford, functioning as a teaching and research hub.

The launch was given some lovely support in the press with coverage appearing in Total Production International, Manchester Wire, Confidentials and About Manchester to name a few.

We have been waiting for a studio like this to open in the city centre and we cannot wait to work with the lovely team at Low Four in the future, watch this space!

After 47 years, and a £28m restoration, Stockton Globe is officially open!

This week, Stockton Globe held its official opening, after 47 years closed and a £28 million restoration, welcoming legendary former Northern Echo photographer Ian Wright as guest of honour.

Having been part of the iconic venue’s journey over the past four years, and, through necessity, holding many of the venue’s milestones online, this is a moment in history we have been looking forward to greatly.

The official opening saw His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester meet Ian, along with representatives from the Globe’s operators Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) and Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, which led the restoration project, before unveiling a commemorative plaque.

Hours later, Ian hosted an intimate ‘audience with’ event, in which he talked through the moments in history he experienced in his time shooting at the Globe from the age of 15, led by the exclusive images that kick-started his illustrious career.

At the event, Ian shared a wealth of stories and showed some never before published images of the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Cilla Black, Frank Sinatra Jr, Tom Jones, The Kinks, Chubby Checker, Shirley Bassey, Ben E. King, Dave Clark and more, some of which are now part of a permanent exhibition on the walls of the newly restored Globe.

Ian captured some monumental moments while at Stockton Globe; his collection takes in the reactions of The Beatles when they were told JFK had been assassinated in Dallas, and Ian also had a camera in his hand when Mick Jagger was cut above the eye by a coin whizzed at the stage by a frenetic crowd, capturing both Mick on stage and the crowd itself.

Throughout the Swinging ‘60s, Ian photographed a who’s who of emerging icons at Stockton Globe before going on to work at The Sunday Times in London. His incredible photography then led to him working in The Times’ New York office, as well as with BBC Radio Times.

We managed the press and social media for the event and needless to say, Ian’s visit, his incredible story and his vault of work attracted much attention from the press with interviews in national outlets such as BBC News and the Daily Express, as well as in regional broadcast outlets BBC Look North and BBC Radio Tees. There was also a wealth of support from Yahoo UK, Yahoo Australia, MSN, Teesside Live, NE Volume, Darlington & Stockton Times, Stockton & Billingham Life, the Northern Echo and the Evening Gazette.

The official opening came hot on the heels of the venue’s first live event, and we were on the ground managing journalist attendance and live socials, as Stockton Globe welcomed McFly a special one off show on its newly restored iconic stage. Legendary Observer photographer Gary Calton’s reportage shoot of this historic moment will join Ian’s collection on the walls of the Globe.

The support for this moment from the national and regional media was also vast, with pieces appearing in the Daily Telegraph, The Stage, ITV.com, Stereoboard, Access All Areas, Total Production International, Teesside Live, the Evening Gazette, Stockton & Billingham Life, Insider, NE Volume, BBC Look North and TFM, while we also placed interviews with the band with BBC Radio Tees and the Northern Echo.

Excitement was at fever pitch for followers of the social channels we’ve spent the last year building a community with, and we were delighted with the overwhelmingly positive reaction from fans and local residents to news of McFly playing the opening show.

Right in the thick of the action, we provided live coverage of the phenomenal show on Instagram Stories, filming exclusive behind-the-scenes content with the band and support act, Chinchilla. With so much brilliant content, over the following week we were able to roll out several videos and photos looking back on the night, which were a huge hit with fans new and old.

This historic venue has been a huge part of our lives for the last four years and we are proud to celebrate its glittering history, and to be a part of its bright future.

 

Photos by Gary Calton

Say hello to The LINK: Stockton Globe’s little sibling

We’ve been so excited to launch ‘Live at The LINK’ for Ambassador Theatre Group’s (ATG) Stockton Globe. It’s a programme designed to support local and emerging artists at the Globe’s little sibling venue, The LINK, and, after months of planning, our carefully curated hybrid launch event happened last week.

The event welcomed a studio audience full of Stockton based businesses, venue owners and press, and also streamed live from the venue via the Stockton Globe website and Facebook page to event promoters, journalists from further afield and the general public. We worked hard with our friends at the brilliant Low Four Studios to ensure a seamless link between IRL and digital.

On hosting duties we had the amazing Rianne Thompson (BBC Music Introducing) and the event featured live performances and exclusive chats with local singer songwriters Luke Royalty and Jodie Nicholson, and hip-hop artist Shakk, as well as an insightful ‘in conversation’ with General Manager Jo Ager about the future of the venue and the programme.

The LINK is a multi-functional space which will operate as a café, bar and live entertainment venue in its own right. The 200-capacity venue will support local and emerging artists with the Live at The LINK programme, adding to the vibrant live entertainment scene in Teesside. During the day, visitors will be able to enjoy coffee, cake and a light food menu before the transformation into a live gig space.

In the future, The LINK will host a variety of events for the people of Stockton and beyond, with diverse grassroot gigs, listening parties, pre-parties and afterparties all being worked into its schedule. The venue is also looking to work with local music event programming partners such as the Tees Music Alliance, NARC. and NE Volume, as well as BBC Music Introducing.

Both versions of the launch were incredibly well received, and we were honoured to get brilliant feedback across the board, while the media backed the project in a big way with coverage appearing in Total Production International, NE Volume, Darlington & Stockton Times, Teesside Live and NARC.

If you weren’t there, you missed a great night…. but you can catch it again here:

Introducing Swansea Arena with Huw Stephens

As part of our work with Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), we look after communications around the launch of its state-of-the-art multi-purpose entertainment venue, Swansea Arena, due to launch in 2022.

Swansea Arena is a brand-new waterside 3,500 capacity indoor arena, located just a short walk from Swansea Beach, Swansea Marina and Swansea city centre.

The game-changing venue is a key part of the £135m Copr Bay Phase One development and is expected to host 160 performances across music, comedy, theatre, esports and conference events for an estimated 230,000 visitors each year. Around 60 of the events will be exhibitions, conferences, graduations and other business-led events.

Having been involved in this incredible venue’s journey since before ground was broken on the build, we arrived at a point in the campaign that we were really excited about here at Sundae; it was time to introduce tour promoters, press, as well as local businesses to the Arena and reveal a state-of- the-art flythrough, as well as some incredible digital assets.

With social restrictions courtesy of the pandemic still well and truly upon us, we planned a hybrid event that would have the capacity to revert to fully digital should the situation dictate it… and dictate it, it did.

Due to the global situation over the last year or so, we have a lot of digital event experience under our belt, so we saw this as an opportunity to get creative and quickly threw ourselves into the new plan; an online event in which a respected music broadcaster would present their guide to the coastal city of Swansea, and introduce new GM Lisa Mart with an insightful Q and A about the venue, with the reveal of the state of the art flythrough and digital assets woven in.

We contacted our dream presenter; the one and only Huw Stephens (BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio Cymru), and told him about the project. In true Huw style, he cracked a few jokes and told us he was completely up for it… we just knew it was going to be amazing.

Because our event guests couldn’t visit Swansea and see how beautiful the city is, we knew that we had to show this off in Huw’s guide; the location is what separates this Arena from other venues of its type as Swansea is one of the few UK cities located on a sandy beach. It’s fringed with a coastal footpath giving panoramic views of the city on one side and the famed Mumbles lighthouse on the other.

We scripted the film, scouted locations, hollered at our camera crew, and met Huw and GM Lisa Mart in Swansea. A full day filming, dodging rainstorms, meeting locals, fun, laughter and, above all, gathering high quality material later, and it was ready to go to edit.

After Huw casually nailed his role of presenter, he kindly introduced us to the brilliant local band Bandicoot and we were able to secure the perfect soundtrack in their song ‘Fuzzy’; with much of the film dedicated to Swansea’s brilliant music scene, it was really important to ATG and ourselves that this was represented in the film.

Our hugely talented editor Damon returned the final film to us, with the flythrough etc stitched in to show the interior of Swansea Arena for the very first time, including how the different configurations for the multi-purpose venue will work for the wide range of events it will host… and it was absolutely fantastic.

With RSVPs from our super targeted guestlist filling up our inbox, we were ready to go; the date, time and viewing platform were all set, so we sent out the final instructions… the event was fully attended by guests that stayed for the duration, ran without a single hitch and received absolutely lovely feedback.

The event and its content was shown great support by the media with coverage across a range of key regional consumer, business and broadcast outlets, and national news and trade outlets including Wales Online, West Wales Chronicle, Planet Radio Online, Swansea Bay News, South Wales Evening Post, Business News Wales, Insider Media, Commercial News Media, Greatest Hits Radio, MSN, Total Production International, The Stadium Business, Ticketing Business News and Pan Stadia & Arena Management.

We have really loved this part of the campaign and overcoming all of the challenges that came with it, but we especially love this client and this Arena, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds…as the legendary Huw Stephens would say: See you down the front!

Llawer o gariad!

 

Tom x

Stockton Globe Unveils Completion of £28 Million Restoration

Wow! What a week! Just yesterday we were on the ground at Stockton Globe, ATG’s brand new, 3000 capacity, flagship music and comedy venue, as it unveiled the completion of its £28 million restoration by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, to a targeted guestlist of press.

We have been so excited for this incredible milestone and it was a real honour to be part of the day as we worked alongside the amazing team from the council to lead our guests on an informative guided tour of the venue, taking in all of the heritage works and new additions while facilitating interviews with ATG representatives and local councillors, as well as a live television news broadcast from the stage.

This wasn’t any normal press launch as it required even further meticulous planning in order to adhere to the social restrictions thrust upon us by the pandemic that shall not be named. We won’t bore you with the exact details of this part of the process, but to cut a long, yet triumphant, story short: they presented a huge challenge that we worked really hard to successfully overcome.

It was a beautiful day; a real life event (we know, right!) with an amazing feeling of pride pulsating through the truly iconic Art-Deco building; it was as if it knew that its entertainment journey was about to start once again.

Tremendous support for the build completion from the media has seen meaningful coverage appear across a spread of titles including BBC News Online, ITV Tyne Tees Online, Music Week, Access All Areas, Total Production International, MONDO-DR, BBC Look North, BBC Radio Tees, ITV Tyne Tees, Northern Echo, Teesside Live, Darlington & Stockton Times and NE Volume.

Another step closer to opening for Stockton Globe and a huge moment for the live entertainment industry as a sleeping legend awakens… in the words of The Beatles: here comes the sun!

Tom x

Lost Horizon: a real festival, in a virtual world

At Sundae, the summer is our favourite work season, we love music, art, sunshine (and rain), ice cream (clearly), but most of all, we love people. We love bringing people together for new experiences, challenges, and everything that goes along with being at a festival.

I absolutely LOVE working with Shangri-La at Glastonbury, and naturally was devastated when it was cancelled, whilst of course understanding that that loss was a fraction of what it meant to the people that create it. I think for me, that was the moment when I really realised how big an effect, from a work perspective, the coronavirus was going to have on us and our friends and our colleagues.

As you might have read, we’ve been working hard to make the best of a very difficult situation, and have been lucky (in a way) that the TV work we do is adaptable, we’ve launched shows that were already made, created  video content, and spent some time becoming the audience. It’s hard but the very medium means it’s possible to create new ways of making content to beam into people’s living rooms.

But what about live entertainment, specifically music festivals, and all the people that work tirelessly to create them? This was a problem that seemed insurmountable at first.

Then we got a phone call….

I was ecstatic, but in some ways not surprised , to hear what Kaye, Robin and Chris had in mind, as they are constantly listening, reacting, adapting and evolving. It seemed crazy, but most of the best ideas do, and no matter might ensue, I was 100% along for the ride. 

Fast forwarding through a massive learning curve, an emotional rollercoaster, a million zooms, and here we are, one week out from the launch of Lost Horizon and utterly delighted.

Set to be the world’s largest virtual reality music and arts festival, taking place on 3rd and 4th July, Lost Horizon has been created to support The Big Issue and Amnesty International in this time when they really really need it, and as an outlet and platform for all the creatives are spending the summer at home. We’ll be treated to four stages, (Freedom, Gas Tower, Nomad and SHITV), some of which Shangri-La regulars will recognise, more than 50 music acts, more than 100 artists, over 50 films, and over 250 artworks.

Lost Horizon fully interactive and multi-stage event to explore via PC, VR or mobile app (iOS and Android) and streamed live and direct to wherever you are on the planet via Beatport and Twitch, and via partner and artist Facebook, YouTube and Twitch accounts. The festival is a deep multi-layered experience, filled with wild dance-floors, secret headliners, a visual feast of art and performance, hidden venues and huge artists.

The line up is out of this world. On the Gas Tower alone, the brilliant Orca Sound Project has programmed Andy C, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Jamie Jones, Noisia (DJ set), Peggy Gou and Seth Troxler among many more, whilst Global Local have A. Skillz, Alabama 3, Coldcut, Frank Turner, My Baby, My Bad Sister and Krafty Kuts on the Freedom Stage.

Nomad, programmed by Lost Horizon co-director Robin Collings, is a brand new stage for 2020 featuring underground artists from labels including 24 Hour Garage Girls, Kaotic Kartel and Run Tingz, whilst SHITV (Shangri-La International Television), Lost Horizon’s media centre will  broadcast everything from the absurd to the enlightened, from the sidelines, frontlines and backstages of alternative culture, all curated by creative director Kaye Dunnings.

We’re honoured to have contributed an amazing Design Manchester partnership, with our one and only Malcolm Garrett co-curating Yours Truthfully with Kaye, bringing in designers including Paula Scher, Morag Myerscough and Patrick Thomas, to contribute to a virtual exhibition that will appear on billboards towering around the Freedom Stage. IRL prints of their virtual work will be available to purchase in aid of The Big Issue and Amnesty UK.

The whole event is an epic undertaking, condensing what shoulda woulda coulda’ve been years of work into a couple of months. We’re looking after press, social media and marketing, plus working with our very good friends and superheroes Instruct Studio, who created the incredible brand and website faster than a speeding car.

Virtual reality is not a replacement for a real life festival, but it is a new way for people to share their art and music, be creative and most importantly interact and be part of a community. You can’t help but be amazed by what is possible as a result of the technology brought to the project by Sansar and VRJAM.

Kaye has transported the aesthetic she creates at a real life festival into an incredibly accurate and detailed virtual world. Robin has moved heaven and earth, along with partners Orca Sound Project, to arrange for some of world’s biggest DJs, and some of the best underground acts, to be transported into virtual reality via green screen, whilst their co-director Chris Tofu Macmeikan has magically brought the virtual vibes, with a Freedom stage line up that feels like a real life festival. 

The reaction across press and socials after just a week has been absolutely incredible with the news covered in nearly 250 titles (and counting) across the globe, from the The Guardian, BBC Radio 6 Music, Radio X Asian Image, Music Week, Campaign, Total Production International, Billboard, DJ Mag, Mixmag, Shortlist, Design Week, Time Out, Metro, Yahoo, MSN, EDM.com, BroadwayWorld, plus a very special partnership with long time Shangri-La fans NME.

Social media has been ablaze with the news, and the campaign has had nearly 2 million impressions in just over a week.

Lost Horizon is a real festival, in a virtual world. Come join the future.

www.losthorizonfestival.com

Fiona x

Silent Lines….the UK tour that made us want more!

When our friends at Russell Maliphant Dance Company got in touch with us and offered us the opportunity to look after the 10 month comminications campaign for the UK national tour of its much anticipated new work, Silent Lines… we certainly didn’t need to be asked twice.

Over the course of 2019 we were tasked with organising the announcements of the work and the world premiere in April at DanceEast in Ipswich where RMCo is ‘Company in Residence’ on a national level and managing press activity for the entire tour on a regional level featuring dates in Nottingham, Newcastle, Guildford, Salford Quays, Wycombe, Birmingham, Taunton, Llanelli, Aberystwyth and Lancaster before organising press attendance for the final shows at Sadler’s Wells, London this weekend.

We planned the campaign down to the letter and worked really closely with the RMCo team and the press and marketing representatives of each venue within the tour to ensure that absolutely no stone was left unturned – this beautiful piece of work deserved maximum exposure and meticulous strategy.

Over the course of the campaign we placed have interview features in The Guardian, The Times, The Stage and The Wonderful World of Dance amongst others.

Further regional features included Creative Tourist, Quays Life, Sommerset County Gazette, Watford Observer, East Anglian Daily Times, BBC Radio Lancaster, Morecombe Visitor and Lancaster Evening Post to name a few.

Silent Lines, as a production, is something that we feel honoured too have worked on here at Sundae; the very energy of the piece and the visually rich and resonant connections between internal and external worlds is something that has inspired us throughout.

It has been an incredible experience; one that transcends dance and our own world of publicity as the media are so engaged with the innovative nature of the work and Russell Maliphant’s unequivocal genius levels that the campaign took a life of it’s own.

The Silent Lines UK national tour is a dance that we don’t want to end and as we look forward to Sadler’s Wells this weekend with a press list consisting of reviewers from The Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Evening Standard, Classical Source and Bachtrach plus many more we are filled with pride that when the curtain comes down we will have achieved the coverage that the production deserved.

Right now we are off to tie up the very last loose ends and prepare for the weekend… we cannot wait to read the reviews!

Tom x

Images courtesy of Russell Malipant Dance Company

The journey to Shangri-La – Glastonbury’s naughty corner

Festivals, music, art and creativity are at the heart and soul of Sundae, so it was an incredible honour to be asked to look after press and publicity for this year’s Shangri-La, our favourite ‘naughty-corner’ of Glastonbury, the festival of all festivals.

Little did we know when exploring the late-night mecca in previous years that we’d be invited to be part of such a beautiful and talented family of creative pioneers, and share their vision for Shangri-La’s tenth incarnation with the world.

I first met Shangri-La’s artistic director Kaye Dunnings eight months ago at 2018’s Design Manchester festival, when she came and delivered a show-stopping talk about her 17 year relationship with Glastonbury. She told her personal creative story, which began delivering installations at Lost Vagueness, and later creating Shangri-La with an incredible ground-breaking collective of artists, musicians and producers to guide the field in the South-East corner of Glastonbury through ten shape-shifting formations.

More than a music festival, and far beyond an art gallery, Shangri-La is a completely unique, politically challenging, community building and above all wildly entertaining production that takes months to develop. For us, it is truly a dream project, as it brings together all that we love, with an infectious, inspiring, heart-warming life force of its own.

We’ve been on site for three days already, after a recce three weeks ago, which is absolutely nothing compared to the six weeks or more the build team, led by Kaye’s partner Willy Brothwood, have been living here for. In even those three days, we’ve seen the site change beyond measure, with the art and venues growing and changing by the hour. We’ve also had the warmest of welcomes and already feel like we never want to leave.

We’ve been kept busy over the past weeks. This year’s theme, Junkstaposition, as ever, couldn’t be more timely, and it has garnered huge interest even before anyone has seen the field, which is being kept strictly under wraps until the first full day of the festival tomorrow.

Junkstaposition isn’t the creative ‘theme’ you might find at another festival, it’s a mirror of the Re-use, Recycle, Resist mantra the Shangri-La team live in their personal and professional lives. This year, we worked with Creative Boom and Creative Review to tell the story of how Shangri-La is created, and all the people that contribute, shining a light on some of the interactive creative responses to it.

Every single item you find at Shangri-La has been re-used or re-cycled, and this year the 360 Gas Tower arena is being made from 10 tonnes of plastic collected from beaches across the South West of England, a project developed in partnership with the Orca Sound Project and Keep Britain Tidy. This created huge media interest, with hundreds of titles across the UK covering the news.

Also new for this year, Shangri-La is hosting new venue The Shed, produced by artistic director Moses Powers, and dedicated to celebrating positive masculinity. This is a completely new festival concept, and so to tell its story thoughtfully, we worked with Moses on an opinion editorial for the Huffington Post, which explained its inception, intent and programme.

Walking around Shangri-La, you can feel the anticipation, and there’s so much to come, it’s difficult to pin-point the element we’re most excited about. From the art, which is still transforming before our eyes, to the incredible music line up, delivered by the legendary Chris ‘Tofu’ MacMeikan, which includes Denzel Curry, Craig Charles, Norman Jay, IDLES and the secret act we couldn’t contain our excitement about any more, Sleaford Mods.

See you on the other side.

Fiona x

Heading for the Ramsbottom Hills

After a successful rebrand and publicity campaign last year, it was music to our ears when we were asked to continue working on the award-winning music festival, Head For The Hills in Ramsbottom for a second year running.

With beautiful panoramic views of rolling Lancashire hills, amazing food, arts and world-class headliners as your soundtrack to the weekend, Head For The Hills offers something for everyone and we were extremely excited to get started on our 2018 press campaign.  

To kick the campaign off in style, we announced the Head For The Hills 2018 lineup in March with a launch party and gig at Blueprint Studios in Manchester.

Nestled away in one of Blueprint’s most famous studio spaces, the launch night was buzzing with press, musicians and industry professionals, coming together to hear who would be gracing the stages at this year’s festival.

We surprised the audience with a preview of this year’s lineup with live performances from much-loved Liverpool pop trio Stealing Sheep, upcoming post-punk three piece LIINES and singer songwriter Mano McLaughlin.

In between acts, artistic director of Head For The Hills, David Agnew delivered the final line up news with which included The Bluetones, The Boomtown Rats, Emily Cappel, The Selecter and The Lovely Eggs all on the bill.

The official line up was revealed to all via our good friends at BBC Radio 6 Music, which went down a storm alongside an interview with Stealing Sheep about their planned Suffragette Tribute, developed with the brilliant Brighter Sound for a festival tour culminating with Head for the Hills.

The 2018 lineup was also incredibly well received by regional press, including BBC Radio Manchester, Manchester Evening News, Manchester’s Finest, Bury Times, NowThen magazine, Bolton News and Rossendale Free Press.

As the festival approached, we looked to the nationals, family and arts press achieving a wide spread of pre-event coverage in the i newspaper, Big Issue North, Raring2Go, Families Online, Family Go Live, Entertain The Kids and Creative Tourist, and it was clear that the festival was one of the ‘top things to do with the kids’ in September and everyone want to hear about it.

In the final lead up to the festival, we had the pleasure of announcing The Slow Readers Club as the Friday night headliner, which piqued the interest of the broadcast media, from an exclusive interview with The Slow Readers Club on the opening episode of BBC Radio Manchester’s brand new weekend programme, ‘The Dead Good Show,’ to our festival management team being interviewed on BBC Introducing Manchester and ‘The Drift’ on BBC Radio Lancashire.

We also secured a number of great previews including Manchester’s Finest, Bury Times, Louder Than War, NowThen , Bolton News and the Lancashire Telegraph, however our ultimate highlight was reaching the front page of Manchester Evening News’ what’s on magazine City Life accompanied by a full page preview. This was a first for Head For The Hills and a great testament to how the festival has grown over the past eight years.

Over the weekend, thousands of festival-goers dressed for showers and hoped for sunshine, heading down to Ramsbottom Cricket Club for the festival season’s final fling which didn’t disappoint. It was a busy but smooth-running few days for Sundae as we managed all of the bands’ press interviews, which took place in our very own buntified press tent! We even managed to catch some bands ourselves and sample some of the delicious food on offer from Tampopo.  

Since the weekend, the festival has received some superb coverage across the board including a 4 star review from the Manchester Evening News and many more from Bury Times, Family Life Bury, Bolton News, Louder Than War and Raring2Go Bury –  and there is still more to come!

With nearly 100 pieces of coverage in our rain coat pockets and having reached over 120 million people with our campaign, it has been a glorious six months working on one of the most fruitful, family friendly and eclectic festivals that Manchester has to offer….here’s to many more! 🙂

MC x

(Images: Chris Payne / Andrew Allcock)

 

The Hexagon Experiment

Earlier this year Manchester-based music charity Brighter Sound announced their latest venture, The Hexagon Experiment – a mind-altering series of six free ‘Friday night experiments’ featuring live music, conversations and original commissions from pioneering women at the forefront of music, art and science.

Inspired by the creativity that led to the discovery of the Nobel-Prize winning ‘wonder material’ graphene, The Hexagon Experiment took place over six weeks during the summer as part of The Great Exhibition of the North in Newcastle and brought together some of the North’s most exciting musicians and scientists for six free events every Friday.

From music made by robots with Haiku Salut, to a spectacular tribute for unsung heroine, Delia Derbyshire by Liverpool pop trio Stealing Sheep, each event consisted of a live performance and an in-conversation between women at the cutting edge of science and the creative arts.

The Hexagon Experiment also formed part of Brighter Sound’s ‘Both Sides Now’ initiative, a three-year programme to support, inspire and showcase women in music across the North of England, and featured a five day ‘Both Sides Now’ residency with Anna Meredith to showcase nine upcoming female and non-binary musicians from the North East at the final event, entitled Works In Progress, which saw the musicians create new pieces of music and visual art inspired by the idea of Micro/Macro.

Here at Sundae we are extremely passionate about working on content that breaks the mould and strives for diversity and gender parity in the media industry. Over the last 12 months we have actively followed and supported Brighter Sound’s work and when we were approached by the team to help publicise The Hexagon Experiment in the final lead up, we were absolutely delighted to help!

With a truly amazing cluster of musical talent on board such as Anna Meredith, Jane Weaver, Haiku Salut, Stealing Sheep, Sara Lowes and Afrodeutsche, and championing such a strong message for more diversity in the music industry, this was definitely a project we wanted to shine a light upon for Brighter Sound and the amazing artists they were showcasing.

As part of our strategy, we created a bespoke short lead publicity campaign based around the project’s individual events with an emphasis on the talent behind them and the ‘Both Sides Now’ campaign.

This resulted in impactful and meaningful coverage that engaged with the project and explored the wider issues and messages for Brighter Sound. We also collaborated successfully with the talent behind the project to land some amazing features including a music experiment spectacular with Drowned In Sound, a blog with Jane Weaver on Big Issue in the North and two fabulous opinion pieces with Stealing Sheep on CLASH magazine and Oh Comely.

Overall, The Hexagon Experiment was an amazing and thought provoking project to work on and Sundae delivered a great selection of online, print and broadcast coverage with a total overall reach of nearly 20 million people.

Further highlights include interviews with Jane Weaver and Anna Meredith on BBC Radio 6 Music and listings within i-D magazine, The Pool, Grazia, Metro, NARC and the i newspaper.

For further updates on The Hexagon Experiment and Brighter Sound, please visit their website here.