What would make Fierce Festival a unique experience? What would compel you to visit this festival not only if you lived in the West Midlands, but nationally and internationally? How does Fierce best nourish and support emerging practices in the West Midlands?  How could this festival distinguish itself from others of its kind, not just in content but philosophically? How do you engage an audience with a shake-up after a fallow year? What would encourage committed audience engagement and new faces at the festival? And how can Fierce contribute to the ‘Birmingham Renaissance’?

Festivals are proliferating across a range of art forms; there is an appetite for them and perhaps the sense of ‘togetherness’ they can offer is in increasing demand as a corrective to the isolated and sometime lonely metropolitan existence that envelops us. In the realm of performance, live art and theatre there is an abundance of national-scale festivals across the UK. However, we observe that the actual range in terms of their programming models is surprisingly narrow. Further, it is increasingly the case that performance and music festivals operate as informal touring circuits; with one successful show passed like a baton from festival to festival. Although this may serve the reputation of a particular show, is this the role of a festival? These replications of content serve to weaken the specificity of the festival, its curatorial voice and its uniqueness. Festivals are in danger of losing the singular, eruptive, ‘break-from-the ordinary’ quality – by which they earn their name.

How we curate, deliver and communicate our festival and surrounding artistic activity will be driven by these questions? If you have responses, disagreements, suggestions – we’d like to hear them.

Looking from the window of the Fierce offices on a Monday evening in February I find myself wondering why and how I find myself here in Birmingham, but more specifically the West Midlands.

For a little context, I was born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent and I went away to study Drama and Theatre Studies in Chester and then back to Stoke-on-Trent. I didn’t think I’d stay for five years, but then I didn’t plan when I’d leave – but I don’t think of myself as local to a city but local to a region and I’m proud that it’s the West Midlands.

So what do I love?

I love the fact that everywhere feels like home, and that we embrace the diverse cultures that surround us – we can create something from nothing and that we built our region on creativity of individuals that consumes the residents.

To help me find the reasons why I ♥ the West Midlands I jotted down words that I found summarised the creatives I have worked with, met and the general ethos of the region. Here is the result – we are resourceful, determined, supportive, optimistic, inclusive, innovative and collaborative. We always look for new ways to make work and work together.

The region has an exciting, diverse range of creativity and talent in its midst and by working together, and making our own opportunities in the region we can really make a difference to the cultural landscape locally, nationally and internationally.