I have two reasons for posting this:

1. It amused me that the site talks up ‘free entry to the splendid Birmingham Artsfest’ when entry is free anyway
2. It’s good to see Birmingham being talked about as a destination for an arty getaway

There’s a few other items bundled into the package that might make it worth throwing your name into the hat. Link to the competition.

Elsewhere on the site there’s a good profile of Studio 4 and mentions given to the Outcrowd Collective, Them Lot, Capsule, Beat13 and Fluid’s Lee Basford. ‘Log’ Roper from Studio4 ‘paints a rosy picture of a thriving, supportive scene, where musicians and artists intermingle’

Sigh.

Anyway, there are a few pubs in Birmingham that are pushing the arty side of things – two in Hockley that have been about for a bit (but not all that long) and a new pretender the other side of town.

The Lord Clifden touts itself as Birmingham’s ‘urban art bar’ and makes a fair claim on the title by having work by Banksy, D*Face, Nick Walker, Blek, Obey, Faile and Army Lion knocking about.  It’s at 34 Great Hampton Street, Hockley (map).

The Urban Art Bar people also own The Red Lion at 95 Warstone Lane, Hockley (map) which seems to follow the same formula and only opened a month ago (I think). There’s info and a few reviews on the beerintheevening.com page.

The Victoria (website soon come) is the new one – it only opened last Thursday. The pub’s been around for a while but has now been taken over by the people who own Island Bar.  The pub now boasts a Birmingham cityscape mural made by the Them Lot collective which is based on the computer game Rampage.

It’s round the back of the Alexandra Theatre at 48 John Bright Street (map) and promises DJs, bands and burlesque shows. It was also the venue for Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School the other day (and will be again on 17 Jan).

Members of the THEM LOT collective had work at the last Ltd Edition and were involved in the Society of Futopia.