Sheffield blog

Where to find out about Sheffield events

With the annual influx of new student arrivals settling into Sheffield life, I thought it would be timely to round up some of the online what’s on guides that are out there.

If you open any national newspaper you’ll see plenty of inspiration for what is on in London. Although Sheffield does now get more coverage that it used to, thanks in part to the Millennium galleries, we still have to work harder to find out this information, relying more on local coverage and communities (both traditional and online) for listings.

This isn’t a massive problem, as often some of the best things happening spread more appropriately via word-of-mouth and through organic networking channels. So keep your ear to the ground and you may unearth some quirky and independent happenings around Sheffield.

For now though a good starting place is these websites (in no order):

Event Sheffield
eventsheffield.co.uk
This site is run by the council and Spin Sheffield and seems to include quite a comprehensive round-up of big events within 20 miles of the city. Organisers can submit their own event, as long as it is ‘expected to attract significant visitors from outside the region and be of national/international significance’. So no matter how good your themed house party is going to be, don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t get accepted on this site. There is also some sort of SMS service for Sheffield events to your mobile, but at 50p per text I won’t be trying it.

Sheffield Telegraph
sheffieldtoday.net/telegraph (the ‘Listings’ link from sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk is broken)
An online version of the newspaper’s weekly listings supplement. Click a category to see upcoming events. It is functional but feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, as the addition of an advanced search (e.g. to allow you to search by date, postcode) would make it much more useful.

The Star
thestar.co.uk
The Telegraph’s sister newspaper offers a ‘What’s on’ guide on their website, although it appears to be a flat page of text with no search option. What may be more useful is keeping an eye on the Ten things to do today page, however this URL changes each day and I’m not sure where this is consistently linked to from. Your best bet is to subscribe to their Entertainment RSS feed, which includes a link to the day’s page.

Sheffield forum
sheffieldforum.co.uk
The old favourite; if you are reading this blog then the chances are you have also stumbled upon this successful and busy discussion site. It has specific sections for Evenings out and Other events – plus of course you can subscribe to RSS feeds of these sub-forums if you wish.

Sheffield nights
sheffieldnights.com
As you would expect, this site focuses on Sheffield’s nightlife. Run by a Hallam student, I think it has had a recent redesign and looks pretty useful, as long as their event database is kept up to date. There is also a Facebook group.

sheffield-tonight.co.uk
sheffield-tonight.co.uk
Avoid this unattractive site, which despite proclaiming to be ‘your 24/7 guide to the best entertainment all night, every night’, is in face very out of date and bereft of events. I looks like it is some sort of joint venture between The Star and radio2XS. Seems to me like they would be better taking it down, as it is damaging for both brands.

Twitter
twitter.com
It you are on Twitter, then obviously keep an eve out for stuff mentioned by the Sheffield people you are following. And occasionally twitter.com/sheffieldblog will mention things happening, as well as other local news.

Are there any more I have missed? It seems like there is an opportunity for some sort of properly localised Sheffield events website with an up-to-date database, proper search functionality and open policy on the events they allow on it.

Will South Yorkshire be one of the first areas to benefit from investment in the digital infrastructure?

In a previous post I suggested that Sheffield could promote its intentions as an emerging creative and digital city by offering free municipal wi-fi to its residents.

Whether this will ever happen is another matter, but a related project has recently caught my eye that would give another boost to Sheffield’s digital credentials.

It is known as South Yorkshire digital region and seems to have passed a little bit under the radar, as I haven’t seen much coverage about it. The project basically seems to involve providing fibre to each telephone cabinet (what I gather is the green box on the pavement) plus introducing VDSL technology, both of which will greatly improve the capacity of the network to deliver faster broadband to more people.

It looks like the project is currently seeking ‘full ratification from all partners’ during October and November 2008, with the contract with Thales Transport and Security Limited, who will deliver and manage the project infrastructure, ready to be signed sometime this month.

Hopefully more news will be available soon on the slightly stale digital region website. In the meantime, the PDF brochure (2.4mb) and this BBC news story give a bit more background information.

What is for sure is that with the first phase of the Digital Campus development soon to be complete, any investment in the area’s digital infrastructure would be a big boost.

Is Sheffield a design city?

People have been submitting pictures of Sheffield for the Design Cities photography competition set up by the Design museum, Flickr and magazine Don’t panic.

The idea is that people submit urban photos of contemporary design, architecture, furniture, vehicles, technology or fashion to the Design Cities Flickr group. 20 photos from this group will then be printed and exhibited in the Design museum in January next year, with one also being printed on 80,000 Don’t panic posters to be put up in cities around the world.

The Sheffield images are generally what you would expect, mainly covering the new bits of architecture in the city centre, with some photographers trying to find new angles on some of the classic shots.

The competition doesn’t close until 1 December, so there is still plenty of time to get your entry in. Surely we can do better than 17 submissions?

Hear their tambourines inside your head

Another band that I have to confess I don’t know loads about, except that their eponymous debut album is rather good in an early-90s-indie kind-of way and their single Planet love was – and still is – a fine slice of guitar pop:

According to discogs.com, it sounds like there there was a bit of a buzz about them prior to signing to Beggars Banquet, but after some strong singles and release of their debut long-player, there were multiple line-up reshuffles and people lost interest.

The dance-music-with-guitars sound seems a little dated now, but The Dylans certainly deserve to be remembered in the pantheon of Sheffield pop history.

Since I have drafted this post, this rather fine music blog has also covered the band. It is good to see that there are some other Dylans fans still out there.

Watch (some) of The Reel Monty video online – or buy the DVD

If you’ve ever searched online for a clip of City on the move, the promotional film famously featured in The Full Monty, you will have probably drawn a blank.

However, to mark the official release of the film on DVD, The Star has put parts of the video online along with interviews with the Council’s first-ever publicity officer and the film-maker.

It’s a nostalgic look at a city that was improving back then, but is almost unrecognisable compared to the Sheffield of 2008.

Read the accompanying article or go straight to the video – you have to press play to set it going. You can also buy a copy of the DVD from thereelmonty.com.

And for comparison purposes, here are the two promotional films that Creative Sheffield has made over the last couple of years to promote the city:

2008

2007

Last week I took the plunge and gave this blog a presence on the micro-blogging site Twitter, which you can find at twitter.com/sheffieldblog.

I’ve had a personal Twitter account for a year and have been thinking about doing this for a while. In the end I decided that the additional time taken to maintain a second account would be worthwhile, as I can use it to:

• alert non-RSS blog readers that a new post has been published
• give a home to Sheffield-related snippets/links that may not deserve a full blog post but are still of interest
• allow me to quickly and easily put content live while on the move
• act as a networking tool and means of promotion
• be a source for blog post material, as receiving tweets gives a continuing snapshot of what Sheffield Twitter-ers are up to

In due course, I will probably also use something like LoudTwitter to import tweets as posts into the main blog.

So if you are on Twitter then please hook up now!

What would you risk to get the perfect shot?

I stumbled across this wonderful photo of the Peace gardens the other day, taken from an unusual elevation:

Sheffield Peace Gardens/St Paul's square, image by The Revolution and used with permission

It is part of a set by a photographer called The Revolution who appears to have scaled one of the cranes adjacent to the Winter gardens in order to take some shots.

I’ve no idea whether they had access or permission to climb up there, but the results are stunning and the residents and workers of the St Paul’s towers will be in for a treat if these are the views that will be on offer when the development is complete.

The full set of Sheffield photos also includes an impressive one of the illuminated Winter gardens from the same angle.