Festivals

WoWee!

What a few weeks we have had! Grassy tents, rain, sweat, tins of rice pudding, face paint and lots and lots of five minute spectacles in our little dome! Some fantastic Feedback from Glastonbury, Latitude, Henley and Secret Garden Party including;

'Fucking Fantastic!'

'What a rush'

'I almost cried with laughter'

Publicity shot

Glastonbury!

"The best thing we've seen"
"Unforgettable"
"We were laughing for the rest of the day"

These were just some of the comments we had from audience members following a fantastic run of shows at Glastonbury Festival...and what a weekend it was! Thursday night gave us all a bit of a fright as we lay in our tents listening to the torrential rain, both Alice and I had visions of a flooded dome - but all was well. It was really great to finally get going, after what seems like months of preparations, and its brilliant to see how the show works with an audience in. The weather held out for us and our damp dome gradually became our sweaty dome as more and more people came to watch 'The Ultimate Collection'. A fantastic start to the 2009 summer tour, with much more yet to come! Check out the Henley Festival website for details of our up and coming shows there next week, and also, listen to BBC Radio Berkshire 8.45am Weds 8th for a live interview with us from the festival site...

Don't Forget The Fundraiser!

OK, so we know you've seen it before, but we'd hate for you to forget our fundraiser this Sat 13th! With a 'village fete' theme this is set to be a melee of creative minds and good old fashioned fun! Our geodesic dome will host live performances and a performance poetry hour. We have called on local musicians to come and perform and the local petanque group will be running a tournament. There will be lots of games and we have also collaborated with local crafts people who will give workshops including whittling and ceramics painting. Look forward to seeing you there!

Performing in Newquay

What a way to end our summer tour!

Four days in Newquay at the Summer Finale 2009 event on Killacourt Green, central Newquay. This free event sounds fantastic and saw 2,000 people pass through last year with music, beer and workshops all weekend. Can't wait!

We will be performing all four days, Friday 28th - Sunday 31st August.

Performance dates in BATH and SALISBURY

Surrounded by the beautiful Berkshire countryside and broody chickens, Laura's family home transformed into the busy InTents Headquarters this week as we pushed forwards with all our administrative duties.

We've made good head way with finding ourselves a geodesic dome cover, securing our Village Fete line up and best of all, confirming new performance dates for August.

Great responses from Bournemouth sea front team and Oxford Events, who are keen to get as much new performance out onto the streets. Following conversations with Cornwall council we also hope to be performing at the Summer Finale in Newquay at the end of August.

CONFIRMED DATES include

BATH for the Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th August on the Kingston Parade, and also

SALISBURY on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th August at the Guildhall Square.

All very exciting and positive news! I'm updating the tour dates in the earlier blog so keep referring to it for a complete schedule of our performance dates.

Village Fete Line Up

We've been really excited about all the positive response to the fundraising event on the 13th June at the Winchester Gate. Massive thanks to all those helping out and getting involved. The line up so far includes;

• Live Poetry Hour in the geodesic dome
• Live Music Salisbury Musicians, specifics TBC
• Clairvoyant by Madame Olivier
• Whittling Workshop by John Buxton
• Ceramics Painting by Splash of Colour
• Circus Entertainment
• Petanque Tournament

PLUS

• Tombola
• Pin the tail on the donkey
• Guess the sweets
• Guess the weight of the cake
• Jumble Sale
• BBQ

Fundraising

InTents InBrighton!!

Very excited to hear today from the events team of Brighton and Hove County Council that all has been approved for our proposal to perform on Brighton Seafront in August. Great news and a performance of particular significance for me with Brighton being my hometown (almost), it's always been a place that I have been close to, admired, enjoyed with very happy memories and close to lots of friends and family.

It's also fantastic as we are returning to our initial aim for InTents performances; in the street, offering anyone and everyone the chance for £1 to experience contemporary performance. We will really be fulfilling our aims and bringing theatre out to our audiences.


We will be performing on Dalton Bastion, opposite the Volks Tavern on the Kemptown side of the seafront, near the pier from the Friday 7th - Sunday 9th August, 12.00- 19.00.

Schedule as follows;

12.00 - 14.00 How to Be Born

14.30 - 16.30 The Death of Elvis

17.00 - 19.00 The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

The Barge Inn

More pictures from our dome weekend

Domes Day

What a perfect weekend it was to road test our new dome! We've just spent a totally glorious couple of days at The Barge near Pewsey, a fantastic old pub with a campsite for a beer garden. We met Henry from The Geodesic Dome Company, who kindly helped us set up our new performance space, and lent us an old canvas cover for the night (as seen in the pic). Surprisingly the whole thing was pretty straight forward, so with a bit of practice, we should be dab hands. Saturday night was spent celebrating in the sunshine, and although sleeping in the dome was a pretty chilly affair, waking up on sunday morning in InTents Theatre's new mobile venue was pretty bloody awesome!

Charity Fundraising Day Confirmed!

VILLAGE FETE AT WINCHESTER GATE
13th June 12.00- 18.00
Salisbury, FREE ENTRY

Our charity fundraising day, has finally been confirmed for June 13th at the Winchester Gate pub in Salisbury. We are very excited about our mini village fete which will located mostly within the pub's beautiful gardens decorated in bunting and balloons.

We invite you to join us PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEY, SMACK THE RAT, explore our geodesic dome INSTALATION, have a BEER and a BURGER, GUESS THE SWEETS IN THE JAR, try for the prize RAFFLE, listen to LIVE MUSIC AND POETRY, join in on our PETANQUE CHAMPIONSHIP, brouse through our JUMBLE SALE, and much more!

Entry will be completly free and all games and amusemts 50p a go. All money is going towards our start up fees (lisencing, cost of geodome, money for a new website etc). Special thanks to Bill and Ann at the Winchester Gate for making this day possible.

Come and support us and enjoy a rediculously fun day!

Our New Dome!

It's another busy week for InTents as we continue to sell our badges to friends and family, as well as work on all our promo and advertising. Saturday is a very exciting day as we head to Devizes to pick up our new geodome. Needless to say we will be testing it out Saturday night (complete with wood burner fingers crossed), so here's hoping it's good and sturdy! We go into rehearsal from June 1st so we need to get all tech in place before this date. Of course not everything can go smoothly, we are having some problems securing the third member of our company, however, Ali and I remain optimistic...if a little desperate! Keep your eyes on the blog as performer profiles will be coming shortly.

Badges

So, yesterday was our first official fundraising push. As with many young companies we have endlessly struggled with our funding. We of course recognise this is an inevitability when working in the arts, but it has, at times, been deeply frustrating. As a young company getting recognition and therefore sponsorship is nearly impossible...it's been a small miracle that we've managed to secure so many tour dates as we are so unknown. Anyway, we decided enough was enough and took it upon ourselves to raise our own money. Speculate to accumulate etc etc...So, armed with 1000 of our new badges we hit Salisbury and made a real solid start at raising those funds on our own...thanks to all those people who supported us!

We are InTents Theatre

We are InTents Theatre! A new performance company dedicated to creating fantastic theatre that is both accesible and fun. Following the success of our doorstep theatre project, Exeter Christmas 07, InTents Theatre are proud to announce 'The Ultimate Collection' summer tour 2009. Finally, after months of work, InTents Theatre are off the ground and running! We are still in the process of securing tour dates, but so far here is how things are looking...

Glastonbury Festival 24th -25th June 09
Henley Festival 8th - 12th July 09
Latitude Festival 16th - 19th July 09
Secret Garden Party 23rd - 26th July 09 (TBC)
Big Green Gathering 29th - 2nd August 09 (TBC)

Brighton Seafront, 7th - 9th August
Salisbury, Guildhall Square 12th-13th August
Bath, Kingston Parade 15th-16th August
Newquay, 28th-31st August

In addition we will be performing in city centres and sea fronts around the country throughout August. This blog will keep you updated as to what's going on our end, letting you know additional tour dates as and when. Also, I'm sure you will hear some of the trials and tribulations that we are, and have been going through as a young theatre company.