OpenMind Christmas Special with Ash Dickinson

Open Mic Event

Contact: ushiku.crisafulli@googlemail.com

OpenMind Christmas Special is our FINAL show of 2011 and features many of our great offers*

*We'll be continuing our discount for group bookings. Groups of 5 or more can have one member of their party in for free, and two people free for a group of 10 or more. We predict it being a popular edition to our discounts and offers.

*Remember to bring your membership cards as every 4 shows attended with a stamped card earns our regular attendees FREE ENTRY to their 5th

*Raffle with top prizes such as computer games, the OpenMind book, an OpenMind t-shirt, free entry to a future OpenMind event of your choice and various smaller prizes. We'll also give people two raffle strips for the price of one if they're wearing a festive hat!

We'll be returning with the live stream at www.openmindcollective.org.uk/index.php/live-stream/ and as part of our new format there'll be a free stream at 7pm GMT till 11pm GMT for our national/international audience outside of Manchester.

As always there'll be the OpenSpace where 12 artists may share their work in 5 minute performance slots (hosted by Indigo):

7:00pm: Indigo starts with the OpenSpace.
7:05pm: Martin Gill poet
7:10pm: Gordon Zola poet
7:15pm: Tony Ward musician
7:20pm: Tsareena Wimbush singer
7:25pm: Janet Taylor fall down comedienne
7:30pm: Stereo Surrealist poet/musician

Our guests this month are diverse and fabulous in equal measure and will be sure to add some festive cheer to the occasion.

Blood In The River (www.bloodintheriver.com) are a hard rock Manchester based band. Within a moody low light atmosphere they will be performing unplugged versions of their songs for the first time. Including 2 songs never before played in front an audience. Both rare and usual for the band - not to be missed.

VADA LGBT theatre company will be presenting an original theatre piece called 'Families' written by Hugh Polehampton which chronicles the relationships between friends and families over a period of 20 years. LGBT history meets LGBT present as times change, whilst others things always stay the same.

This month for the first time in our proud history, OpenMind are proud to announce that we have TWO headliners.

Poet and theatre practitioner Josh Coates returns for his second OpenMind headline slot. What will the man that gave us Dog Yoda and the ups and downs of Festival Slam poetry have in store for us this month?

Our grand finale will be none other than the fantastic poet Ash Dickinson. This amazing, world-renowned artist fuses dynamic performance poetry with effortless humorous hyperbole. He's won slams and accolades all around the world, and it will be our distinct pleasure to have him make this Christmas event a very merry occasion. For more information about Ash and what's going on please check out his website at: www.ashdickinson.com

Price: £5.00

Time: 6pm doors, 7pm start