This year’s Fierce Festival has something of an audience participation angle to it in that the public will decide what acts get put on. They’re calling it Wikifest. From the email:
We have reserved a whole range of spaces at Birmingham Hippodrome, Patrick Centre and Warwick Arts Centre, from studios to conventional performance spaces, to foyers, cupboards, dressing rooms and spaces on the roads, pavements and piazza outside. We need work to fill these spaces.
We want to hear from you if you are an artist, performer, film-maker or company with work that will be ready to be performed or shown during the late May bank holiday weekend. That’s 23 – 26 May 2008.
Submissions have to be in by 25th Feb and 30 proposals will be posted to the Fierce website on 10th March to be voted on by the public and whittled down to the last 11. The final lineup will then be announced on 14th April.
Fierce takes live art and performance outside of the traditional spaces where it is normally seen, and brings artists of international renown to places as diverse as hotels, gentlemen’s clubs, swimming pools and ordinary houses as well as galleries and theatres, taking in everything from contemporary dance to sonic terror. If you want to be part of a pulsating performance festival this May; if you can stop an inquisitive, savvy, seen-it-all-before audience member in their tracks, then show us what you’ve got.
From individual experiences of 3 minutes to 18 hour endurance events, Fierce! 11 wants you!
Here’s the submission form and the competition rules. If you’re interested you should contact marketing [at] fierceearth.com or call 0121 244 8080 for all the details (as I’ve only summarised them here).