There were a fair few people from Birmingham who went along and they had access to a week’s worth of West Midlands listings data provided by Global Data Point, which Marketing Birmingham had a hand in arranging, so here’s a list of the kind of things they made.

Mark James and Andrew Lowther from Made Media made a few things:

• LuvvieScore highlights cultural hotspots in UK (well, just Birmingham at the moment). CiB’s office rates as an ‘A-List Badger Fossil’, happily
• TescoFresco maps the location of theatres and branches of Tescos (pic below with theatres in red, Tescos in blue)
• Following a request, they did the same thing with Tescos and libraries

Matthew Somerville and Clare Lovell made Pepys’ Shows, featuring the extracts from Samuel Pepys’ diaries where he reviews trips to the theatre.

Stef Lewandowski (previously from around these parts, so he’s allowed it in this round-up) was busy too:

• He simplified access to 1m+ artifacts in the Culture Grid API by providing Ruby access (ruby gem here)
• In case it wasn’t obvious, he then made a mobile app to show what that means
• And finally he was involved in Filmflexicon which cross-references on-demand films and rating from Rotten Tomatoes

The full list of hacks, which included a service that uses Foursquare check-ins to work out when galleries and museums are at their busiest and Subvertle – a framework for playing with iPlayer subtitles, should be on the Culture Hack Day website later.

On the Saturday there were some talks too. If you’re interested in what all that was about then I’ve written up quite a few notes on the Meshed Media website.

(* yes, so it should have been Culture Hack Weekend)

First up, Theatricalia is the work of the ever-impressive Matthew Somerville. It’s ‘a database of past and future theatre productions’ which makes it no less than IMDB for theatre.

Already it contains archives of plays and performers from the RSC, Bristol University Archive, the Royal National Theatre and Birmingham Rep (1913-1971). You can search by play, person or place and edit entries yourself to help the archive grow.

The potential for Theatricalia is a little mind-boggling.

Black Routes is a new UK wide touring network for African and Caribbean music, with Punch Records as one of the founding partners and chair.

Punch’s Ammo Talwar wrote an article in the Birmingham Post explaining the context for the project, particularly how it fits in with what’s happening in Birmingham at the moment.

Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head.  Still here are they:

• Every event has been manfully wrangled into the Live Brum database
• Jon Bounds has scanned the programme and put it online
• He’s also put together a map showing what’s happening where (but not when)
• Matthew Somerville from Dracos.co.uk has put together a searchable list of events listed by time, not location

I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.

In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do.  Or at least what I think looks interesting.

Friday evening

Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.

• Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
• From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House.  Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures.  Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
• Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation.  Could be interesting
• At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
• The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)

Saturday

Saturday’s the tricky one.  There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across.  That said…

• Nic Gaunt’s exhibition ‘The Rotunda: 21 Stories‘ will be at The Pavillions all day
• From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”.  Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
• From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items.  Plus there’ll be fireworks.
• After that it’s Project X Presents for me.  It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.

Sunday

• If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’.  At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
• After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
• From 7pm Needle & Thread Theatre are doing the rather charming-looking ‘Between The Lines’ – walking theatre around the Central Library.  This is on on Saturday too (call 07530 939 380 to book a free place)
• It’s Kerrangfest in Centenary Square from 12pm with The Mexicolas, The Metros, Envy & Other Sins and The Levellers later in the evening.

Of course, whether I actually get round a fraction of all of that is another question.