The event will be taking place at The Victoria, and will welcome Myles McLeod, Animation Writer and Director of The Brothers McLeod and David Edmundson-Bird, Director of Digital Marketing Communications at Manchester Met University, who’ll be introducing some fun and interesting things.

Director of Rubber Republic, Chris Quigley, will also be parading the event dressed as a giant cat, and talking about the latest internet memes and viral trends.

Tickets are free, and can be booked via Eventbrite, where you can also find more info on the event.

He’s also one of the dancers who jumped on stage with KRS-One at the HMV Institute recently:

Speaking of Down By Law, they’re running the second room at Mama Feel Good’s Christmas Get Down at that new place called PST on Saturday 11 December. Facebook event here.

Speaking of musical Christmas bashes, I’ve just spotted the line-up for the Brum Notes/Speech Fewapy Christmas do on the Victoria’s website:

FRI 17th BRUM NOTES & SPEECH FEWAPY RECORDS CHRISTMAS PARTY – The Traps, Calories, Cajole Cajole, Tom Peel, Greg Bird, plus DJ sets from Malpas, Tantrums, Victories at Sea, Speech Fewapy and This is Tomorrow – 7.30pm, FREE
On Facebook: BRUM NOTES

The final Filmrats of 2010 is tomorrow evening from 8pm at The Victoria. Join them for an evening of short films and live music at just £2 in.

This scrapbook, cut & stick style poster was also designed by illustrator Hayley Warham, which is rather cool.

• Invisible City‘s final event, Media Circus, takes place on 29 Oct at Fazeley Studios. With entertainment, music, drinks, performances and digital displays, along with the winners of the Invisible City categories to be announced. Fancy dress is along the lines of Victorian Circus.
• CBSO’s Friday Night Classics: Nightmare on Broad Street takes place on 29 Oct, 7.30pm at Symphony Hall, with a pre-concert talk at 6.15.
• Town Hall host a Halloween Silent Movie Special with the 1923 classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame on 31 Oct at 7.30pm.
• Black Country Living Museum are holding Halloween at the Museum on 30 & 31 Oct from 6.30pm – 10pm, with opportunities for psychic reading and trick or treating along the cobbled streets.
• Take a guided tour of Aston Hall, exploring the ghosts and legends on 31 Oct at 7.30pm. Full of spooky surprises, this is not suitable for children of a ‘nervous disposition’.
• Halloween Night at the Museum Collections Centre invites you on a spine tingling trail for a chance to see some of the scariest objects not on general display, join the tour on 29 Oct from 6.30pm – 9pm.

Since Halloween falls on a weekend, it would be a crime to let an opportunity to get dressed up go unmentioned. Most weekend club nights will be welcoming heavy eyeliner and fake blood, on the only occasion where you can get away with wearing a bin liner, here’s a few that stand out;

• Jocko Homo will be hosting The Victoria’s Halloween festivities from 9pm with free entry.
• Face present their Halloween Bash at Cellar Door, the Rainbow, with house legend Emerson Todd.
• Hare & Hounds are holding House of God Halloween Party with horror makeup available on the night.
• Eddie’s Rock Club will be dishing out a free shot for the first 100 people through the door, and a £50 prize to the best dressed.
• The fourth Electric City event at HMV Institute is Spectrum’s Halloween Fancy Dress Special, with Sub Focus and Stanton Warriors live.
• The Curates Egg presents a Halloween special at The Old Wharf on 31 Oct, with live music from Nightingales, The Courtesy Group and Black Carrot.

Plus outfit inspiration is provided by this month’s issue of Area for how to pull off a creepy-but-cool costume, with just the right amount of effort to keep your street cred.

OxjamBrum is fast approaching, the bands are ready to go, with 12 hours of live music coming from 40 local acts from 2pm onwards on Sat 16 October.

Tickets are only £6 and get you access to all the venues at any time. Advance tickets are on sale until Fri 15 October at midnight, but tickets will also be available on the door. The wristband exchange point on the day will be at The Yardbird, where you can also pick up stage times for all the venues.

Here’s a run down on who’s playing where;

The Yardbird – Doors 2:00pm
Nick Pride and the Pimptones
Frutaloka
Arcadian Kicks
Smileymic
The Bluebeat Arkestra
Alex Moir
Big Black Smoke
Benjamin Blower

The Flapper – Doors 3:30pm
Isolated Atoms
Malpas
Bronze Medals
This Burning Age
The Corsair
Shana Tova
Soni-quella

The Victoria – Doors 4:30pm
Tantrums
Sunset Cinema Club
Cajole Cajole
VS
Tom Peel
Savant
Pandas and People

Island Bar – Doors 4:00pm
(Silver) Souvenirs
Hot Monocles
Lady Fortune
Monster Monster
Death Ohh Eff
Jake Bullit
James Rea

The Prince of Wales – Doors 4:00pm
Scat Cat
Corrie Palmer
Tony Wille
Paul Murphy
Mike Smith

Café Blend – Doors 3:45pm
Vijay Kishore
Poppy Tibbetts
Jodi Ann Bickley
Mellow Peaches
Barnesy
Neil Ward
Michael James Butler

A quick reminder that tonight is PILOT Light, taking place at The Victoria at 7:30pm. An excuse to mingle, have a drink and be entertained by the theatre artists who are unleashing their fresh, unpolished ideas.

It’s number 2. The difficult second book. So we’ve tweaked things a bit. We need you to tell us if it works. As, of course, do the brave artists performing their brand new theatrical ideas on our little stage!

Entrance is only £2.

‘An evening of barely organised theatrical chaos!’

The next PILOT Light takes place on 14 October at 7.30pm, The Victoria, and is on the hunt for untested, unpolised and unfinished ideas from theatre artists. This is great chance to meet and share your thoughts with like-minded people, where mistakes are welcomed so long as you bring your passion along too.

It’s an opportunity for theatre artists from the West Midlands to test out 5-10 minutes of work that is right at the beginning of its developmental process in front of a curious, confused and courageous audience. It’s also a chance to find out who else is doing what in the area, and make new creative connections.

If this sounds like your kinda thing, email your proposals to PILOTlight@mail.com by 2 October, with the following information:

Contact/Company Name:
Description of idea (max 200 words):
Length of performance (10 minutes max):
Number and names of all people involved:
Estimate of travel expenses (we have a small budget for travel expenses that will be shared between participants).

Successful applicants will receive email confirmation by 5th October.

Picked this up at Artsfest. I can’t find much about it online, but it looks interesting.

20 – 22 September at The Victoria, Green Gorilla Presents – Polite Assassins – A play celebrating an almost forgotten heroine air-brushed out of history, Mary Seacole. Starting at 7:30pm, tickets are £7/ £5 concessions.

Just a quick round up of everything going on this weekend, there’s a lot and we wouldn’t want you to forget and miss out on anything!

Cum Clubbing – Hosted by VIVID, this art party does not look like something to be missed (although it’s happening now, so get down quick). From 8pm – late, VIVID’s project space will be taken over by live music, DJs and visual artists who’ll conspire to create an excitingly strange evening of camp disco. Tickets are £5.

To save time I’m going to be both lazy and efficient, and link you to everyone else who’s been talking about this. Take a look at Digbeth is Good, More Canals than Venice, brianduffyhasabigbrain, and Birmingham: It’s Not Shit.

Zine Festival – Not put off by the scale of Artsfest, this niche festival has a weekend full of events for you to get involved in.

• Starting this evening at The Edge is a screening of ‘$100 & A T-Shirt‘, Joe Biel’s documentary on zine culture. Entry is a £1, which also gets you a bag of popcorn, along with a talk from Pete Ashton and Rob Horrocks on the emergence of the small press comics scene and music zine influence in the 80s.
• The Victoria is host to the Zine Fair on Saturday from 12 – 6pm, along with a workshop from 2 – 2.30pm with Peter Lally, as he runs through the history of Alternative Press and curates a Q&A session on running your own zine events.
• At 5 – 6.30pm Island Bar are inviting zine fans to ‘Drop in + Draw’, offering a pencil and paper to unwind with, before the party starts with the Atta Girl Zine Party, 8pm – 2am.
• From 6.30 – 8.30pm, Get A Grip will be guiding guests through the process of making your very own totally unique t-shirt. T-shirt, equipment, inks, images and expertise supplied for £20 per person. If you fancy it, book in advance, more details here.
• Sunday will be a chilled out picnic in Cannon Hill Park at 1 – 4pm. With nothing for sale and free to attend, the party will be meeting at mac.

Artsfest – As already mentioned, the weekend of free arts events kicks off this evening and will continue to entertain through to Sunday night. With live performances coming from Centenary Square and Chamberlain Square, along with short films and animations screened at the Crescent, plus various performances and workshops held at theaters and bars across the city, don’t let the miserable weather deter you from leaving the house!

Ian Ravenscroft has a new blog and has used is to voice his annoyance at the lack of places available for trumpeting stuff that’s happening (in his case, the Popcorn Comedy nights at the Victoria):

So realistically, we’re left with flyering and postering. Which is fine. Well, unless you live in Birmingham that is. If you’ve tried to do it here, you’ll know it’s a nightmare. You can’t flyer, you can’t poster, and subsequently promoters of all events face the prospect of shutting down due to a lack of numbers.

Venues don’t want to cross-promote, understandably, but as a result, it looks to the average punter like there isn’t much going on in the city. And when I say ‘average punter’ I mean, someone who likes going out, but isn’t switched on to the whole social networking/blogging/RSS thing.