As part of the MIDAS project supporting up and coming musicians, each act will have their set recorded and later mixed at a local studio for use on demos or their own promotional web sites. Doors open at 8pm with the first act on stage at 8.15pm and, best of all it, it’s free entry.

MIDAS (or to give it its full title Music Industry Development and Support) is a resource and information platform for anyone with an interest in contemporary and/or traditional music. It puts professional and aspiring performers in touch with people from the music industry that can assist them in a variety of ways, and offers advice on anything from starting a band or recording a demo to promoting a gig. www.hi-arts.co.uk/music

Rachel Sermanni is eighteen and from Carrbridge. At the beginning of the year Rachel joined a line up of great Scottish singer-songwriters for the Homecoming Burns Night celebration in Alloway. This led to supporting Sandi Thom on her Scottish Homecoming tour, Roddy Hart on his recent tour promoting his new album, then Pearl and the Puppets at Loch Ness and Tommy Reilly at The Ironworks. Next year Rachel travels to Jordan alongside some of Scotland’s top musicians, including Aidan O’Rourke, for a ‘Scottish Theme’ week. www.myspace.com/rachelsermanni

Sara Bills is a young singer/songwriter from the Highlands of Scotland. Now working with her band The Hasbeens, who have come together to create a platform for her alt.folk/indie penned songs, she is currently in the studio working hard to bring these songs to life. Sara is hoping to embark upon the festival trail next summer and a possible mini-tour to share the melancholy love that Sara Bills & The Hasbeens generate! www.myspace.com/sarabillsthehasbeens

Iain McLaughlin shows his gentler side with this acoustic set. Former frontman of The Breech and now working on his new project Iain McLaughlin and the Outsiders, Iain is developing a strong following and his acoustic set is guaranteed to be something special. http://www.myspace.com/thebreech Jess Ryan is a self-taught singer songwriter whose songs are mainly accompanied by guitar or piano. Her songs, influenced by her own life and the wider world, give them a powerful and emotional quality, leaving the listener captured by thought provoking lyrics. www.jessryan.co.uk

MIDAS Acoustic Showcase The Bothy, Hootananny, Inverness Friday 4th December, 8.00pm

Over the year, we have been selling for a huge number of Homecoming events, but there are still a few to come, including a Homecoming Finale being hosted by Queen Margaret University. Tickets are on sale now!

If you have any pictures from any Homecoming events you have attended, please send them to us and we will post them up on the blog! Also, join in our Facebook discussion and let us know what you enjoyed the most about the year of Homecoming.

Elizabeth
Marketing and Administration Officer

thebooth is an online ticketing agency, and we’ve now been around over 5 years. Over this time, we’ve seen a massive change in online technologies – who would have guessed 5 years ago that Facebook and Twitter would revolutonise the way that we interact with our friends, or that the Iphone would become so popular? And how do all these technologies affect the way we do business?

As an online ticketing agency, social media tools fit nicely with thebooth ethos. We tweet about events going on sale, and our number Facebook fans is growing by the day; so as our social media sites continue to gain popularity, what about traditional methods of communicating with our customers, good old fashioned email?

As social media sites continue to grow and become more established, it would be all to easy to say that the death of e-mail is nigh. However, there has been much research and debate on the subject. ClickZ, a news and advice website for digital marketers, is just one of many sites where experts in online marketing argue the case that the explosion in social media does not spell the end for email.

Certainly, in the last 18 months, thebooth has seen an increase in our promoters requesting promotional e-flyers – and the response rate by customers far exceedes the take up rate on either our Twitter or Facebook pages. If you’d like to receive our e-flyers, you can sign up here.

Of course, e-flyers and social media can go hand-in-hand together. We use an email service provider called Mail Chimp, which features a multitude of integreation tools – all e-flyers are posted to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, we can send e-flyers based upon RSS feeds, and I’m sure another 101 things we’ve yet to discover.

For those who have still to join in the social media revolution, or just aren’t sure if it’s for them and their business, there is a great deal of information out there on the web. A quick Google search will pull up 1000’s of pages of information, a look on WordPress will find you 100’s of blogs written by industry professionals, offering advice on how to get started and best practices. HI-Arts, the arts dvelopment agency for the Highlands and Islands, recently updated their social media tip-sheet, with lots of useful information – although aimed at those working in the arts sector, the information can be easily applied to anyone starting out in social networking.

And there are always new things to be discovered in this ever evolving world of digital change. Next month I will be journeying further into the world of social media, and attending the Arts Marketing Association’s Digital Marketing Day in London. The conference aims to help delegates to gain a better understanding of the digtal media opportunities out there, and to develop a strategy on how best to implement them.

It is clear to see that social media does have an effect on the way that people and businesses interact with each other, but does it signal the death of e-mail – I think that will be a long way off yet!

Elizabeth
Marketing and Administration Officer

Still in it’s infancy, we are populating the page with details of the events we are selling for, links to our lovely eflyers, and other things that we think may interest our fans.

Today is the last day our profile will be active on Facebook, it will be de-activated at 1630 (GMT). So spread the word, tell all your friends, tweet about it, blog it, write it on your wall – thebooth is looking for fans!

Our Facebook profile is set to be closed next week, but will be replaced by a brand new Fan Page! Fans will be updated with news of the latest and best events on sale at www.thebooth.co.uk.

If Twitter is more your thing, become a follow of thebooth to receive our latest tweets.

And of course we are still active on MySpace, the grandad of Social Networking sites.

If your prefer old fashioned email news, then sign up to receieve our e-flyers: sent on a regular basis, these will keep you informed of the latest news events on sale at thebooth.

Last week saw A Pilgrimage take place. The lastest film festival offering from Tilda Swinton saw the ScreenMachine mobile cinema travel from Kinlochleven to Nairn, showing a variety of films en route. With most showing sold out on thebooth, here’s hoping it’s going to be a regular occurence!

And talking of sold out, the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival sold out for the first time this year. The festival took place over the weekend, in a (mainly) sunny Belladrum Estate near Beauly. Early reports seem to suggest this was one of the best Bella’s yet, so remember and get your tickets early for next year – as it very well could be a sell out again!

Broken Records on the Garden (Main) Stage at Belladrum 2009

HI-Arts Read Bed Stage @ Belladrum 2009

‘We’re over the moon landing another of Scotland’s biggest bands to headline one of its smallest festivals. Its further proof that our size and location are our two biggest selling points to these bands, rather than seeming them as hindrances. On the back of Belladrum selling out and leaving lots of fans wanting more we expect Loopallu to sell out even faster than normal.’

A quick seach online brings up a multitude of Social Networking advice, on how best to optimise your sites to bring about the most benefit to your business. It would be quite easy to spend the two days of downtime simply reading all about the wonders of Web 2.0! However, that still doesn’t get the work done, although it certainly provides food for thought.

So for the next few hours, our Facebook and MySpace pages will themselves be getting an overhaul, in amongst all the Tweeting. We really want these social spaces to have more interaction and input from our fans and friends, so feel free to send us a message or 5 with suggestions, or what content you would like to see.

Belladrum Logo

It’s a little over 4 weeks til this year’s Belladrum Festival. (We’ve started to do sun dances already!) Always one to try something a little different, yesterday saw Bella release details of their attempts to lower their carbon footprint at this year’s festival, by recycling up to 5 tonnes of food waste.

 The Green Dream Machine will clock up another first at this year’s festival by collecting up to 5 tonnes of food waste. Not only will this reduce the festival’s land-fill but the food waste will be converted into a high quality compost.

The Green Dream Machine was formed by volunteers at Belladrum in 2006 and have gone on to create a range of projects to reduce waste and promote recycling at outdoor events – a new project is currently being designed and will be unveiled at this year’s Belladrum.

“Compost Corner” as it has been dubbed is a simple system and will be managed by Bella’s own green champion and GDM volunteer, Catriona MacLeod. Catriona explained, “This year we will have dedicated wheelie bins and skips for all the caterers’ food waste. This waste will be taken off-site to a nearby in-vessel composter and within a few weeks this waste will be converted into a rich, high quality compost.”

In these days of climate change and global warming, it’s good to see a festival taking such a innovative approach – if Bella expects to save 5 tonnes from going to landfill, how much could this weekend’s T in the Park save?

Belladrum 2009 takes place in the beautiful Highland surroundings of Belladrum Estate, near Beauly in Inverness-shire. The independent festival has built a reputation for its eclectic line-ups, its off-beat non-musical entertainments and its all-ages approach. Capacity will remain what it was in 2008 at 12,000. At the UK Festival Awards Ceremony in October – the festival industry’s ‘oscars’ – Bella was awarded the Grassroots Festival Award.

Award-winning Belladrum has announced headliners  Editors and Ocean Colour Scene plus a raft of other acts including: The Saw Doctors; Shed Seven; British Sea Power; Seth Lakeman; Alabama 3; Sons & Daughters; Glen Tilbrook & The Fluffers; The Peatbog Faeries; Lau; Toploader; Treacherous Orchestra; Transglobal Underground; Tommy Reilly; De Votchka; The Phantom Band; 3 Daft Monkeys; Edward II; The Wallbirds; Kid Carpet; Sam Isaac;  Broken Records; Magistrates; Healthy Minds Collapse; Sparrow & The Workshop; The Lost Brothers; and Scooty & The Skyhooks.

Of course, Belladrum isn’t simply about the music. This year sees another first, with the introduction of Sweaty Bella, a mountain bike race on the Saturday morning, which is open to festival ticket holders only – buy your entry ticket along with your festival ticket!

If that sounds too energetic then there is plenty more on offer, from debates and writing workshops to the world’s number one Billy Connolly tribute act, Silly Connoly.

There’s also plenty for the kids at Belladrum, making it one of the most family friendly festivals around. From facepainting to kids theatre, there’s somthing for everyone, including a visit from Mr Boom!

Tickets for this year’s Bella are available now from www.thebooth.co.uk

‘A Pilgrimage’ , the latest Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins film festival went on sale on Wednesday afternoon. Following on from the success of last years Ballerina Ballroom, A Pilgrimage will see the ScreenMachine mobile cinema travel from Birdge of Orchy to Nairn showing a variety of films en route, from 1st-9th August. Tickets are available for each showing, or buy a Pilgrim ticket and join the whole tour – complete with a chance to help pull the ScreenMachine! Tickets available from www.thebooth.co.uk or for more information see www.a-pilgrimage.org.

Away from the world of travelling cinema, we have been busy designing e-flyers promoting two upcoming festivals: The International Genealogy Festival at the Universty of Strathclyde, Glasgow (21-24 July) and the Guildtown Bluegrass Music Festival (31 July-3 August). Click on the links to view the flyers, and if you’d like a e-flyer designed for an event you are selling for on thebooth.co.uk, please get in touch!

So it’s now Friday afternoon, and we’re looking forward to a lovely relaxing weekend before antoher busy week next week!

Do let us know if you’ll be attending any of these events, or indeed any others we are selling for, we’d love to hear what you are looking forward to!

You can read more about us and what we do on the ‘about’ page. We have set this blog up so we can share the latest news, reviews and anything else related to the events we are selling for, all over Scotland.

We want to involve others in making this blog come alive and be as informative as possible, so feel free to send us your thoughts and ideas!