The shutters are down and the windows have been papered up. It’s as if we were never there.
A big thanks to everyone who’s been involved – to all the staff (Aaron, Dennis, Matt, Aaron, Charlotte, Frankie, Ian, Dan, Ruth and Jess) and all those who stepped in to volunteer their time when they were needed (Mark, Ellie, Jo, Karen, Laura, Nick, Louis, Leonardo… dammit, I’m going to start leaving people out now, sorry! You know who you are though).
Thank you to everyone who hired a stall, performed, exhibited, hung out, attended something, told your friends, written/blogged about us or otherwise documented what we’ve been up to and (most of all) bought something from us over the three months we were open.
HUGE thanks to everyone at Bullring – especially Louise, Rachel, Emma and Holly – who’ve supported us more than anyone could reasonably expect.
And, above all, thanks to Pete for everything he’s managed to accomplish over the past few months.
We’re taking a break for a bit now. Pete’s going to be looking at how to build on what we’ve done over the past 12 weeks (with me helping in the background), so watch this space.
In the meantime, thanks again to everyone who played a part in something that turned out to be even better than we hoped. There’s a bit of a get-together/send-off on Saturday 29 May if you’re about.
The nice folk from I Am Birmingham came down and filmed us over the weekend. Here’s the video, with contributions from Matt Murtagh and myself:
Perhaps a CiB version of Etsy?
Thank YOU again for such a lovely shop / experience, for the friendly welcome, for stocking such cool stuff and for allowing us to have a BookCrossing Zone (box) and a stream of BookCrossers marching in and ferreting under the coffee table!
Thanks for putting the film up, it was great meeting and interviewing you guys. I popped in a couple of times when you first opened and the difference on the last Saturday was amazing, there was so much stuff there, it was incredible.
Hope you guys open up again so we can do it all over again! :)
Loved this shop… such a good idea, it’s amazing no one’s thought of it before. I hope it resurfaces elsewhere in the city centre some other time; there’s no shortage of empty shop units, after all. Combine it with an independent coffee shop and you’d be offering something the city centre is sorely lacking.
Taking the concept one step further, I’d suggest something even bolder: open a shop in London. I can just see a branch on Commercial Street, Bethnal Green Road or Hackney Road. This would do more to promote Brum in the capital than the quantum of the city’s past efforts combined. London’s my hometown and I came up to Brum recently, in part because I’d read about the CiB shop and wanted to check out its wares. And having seen them once, I’m looking forward to coming back.