HWCH

The Hard Working Class Heroes Festival took place in the Pod complex in Dublin last weekend. It's a 3-day affair to give unsigned bands a chance to perform in front of a wide audience, ideally consisting of people from the industry too. There were 6 rooms - in order of size: Working Man's Club, Lennon Lounge, Odeon, Pod, Crawdaddy, Tripod. The Odeon was for chilled out, sitting on comfy seats type music.

In terms of design:

• the logo is pretty poor methinks. Indecipherable. No sense to the colour scheme.
• the brochure and info was fine although the map was unhelpful. A rip-off from architect's drawings without considering how they would be useful to patrons.
• The layout of the rooms, the one-way system, the signage was well thought-out. (Apart from access to the Odeon being via the street and therefore not being able to bring drinks.)

Here's my scribbles on the bands I saw over the three nights. I did up my own timetable again so I could see where the overlaps in the schedule were.

Bands I enjoyed: Tribal District, Not Men But Giants, Le Bien. The attendance at most gigs was disappointing.

I met a friend who is in one of the bands and he had been busy throughout the day at mentoring sessions with PR people and others which he found very beneficial.Design, music, creativity - I suppose it's a valid posting for this blog! And I did try and involve the idea of "designing a festival". Another example that I was at was the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures. It's interesting the info that is handed out to the public, the way the thing is laid out etc. I think it's related to Design!