What is Venue B

What is venue B

 

Venue B is a music venue within Brighton Youth Centre that is set up for young people to participate in the planning and running of gigs. We provide young people with the ability to participate in music in whatever way they feel able. Whether that be as a performer, as a sound engineer, as an event organizer or as an audience.

 

Our aim

 

Our aim is to provide young people with the opportunity to participate in live music in whatever way they feel able. We want any young person who comes to BYC to feel that no matter where they are on their journey they can participate in music. This is how we visualize the progression of young people as musicians by BYC.

 

We also want to provide a real world, professional music environment so that those who want to progress into music as a career choice can gain vital skills to make their life in the music industry easier. For example, understanding how to run a gig is a difficult concept that can be hard to learn but we provide a practical experience of what that can be like. Likewise for performers, We provide them with a fantastic live sound setup that gives them the space to learn performance and professional musicianship skills.

 

The new musician

 

For new musicians we want to provide the opportunity to participate in music and learn in a positive and inclusive social environment. For this we are providing one to one music tuition as well as group sessions that give new musicians that chance to actively engage with other musicians at different points within their musical journey. Our vision with this is to provide an entry point for new musicians to feel safe and able to engage in music and to learn from others with a similar passion.

 

The first time performer

 

For many musicians, participating in a music group or some music tuition is all they want to do, and that is perfectly fine. We want young people in our project to do music as an enjoyable activity alongside other musicians. For some of our musicians, the goal is to be able to get on our stage at Venue B and perform to other young people. 

 

This step of the process for many is intimidating as performance can be a frightening experience. For this stage we provide band workshops as well as rehearsal spaces to help get young people into a position to perform. We provide band workshops with individual bands at all stages of their progression to aid in their improvement and we also provide social spaces to talk about the experience of music and performance through our band meetings and open club sessions. Our aim with this is to provide young people with a social space where they can watch and learn from other musicians who have been in the same position as them.

 

The experienced performer

 

For some, the first time performance at a gig can be enough for them. But for those bands and artists the next step is gaining more experience. We provide more experienced bands with the opportunity to progress towards being a headline band at one of our gigs. We want to set our bands the goal of being able to build an audience for themselves at our gigs, build a repertoire of music that crowds enjoy and perform in a way that captures an audience. Much like in a real world gigging environment, we provide our headline bands with a longer set so that they have the chance to really show an audience what they can do and capture them as followers.

 

The cycle repeats

 

As bands and performers progress, some may drop out of being part of music to pursue other things. This is something we absolutely accept and we want to provide the young people with an enjoyable experience to look back on either way. For many bands, that headline slot can be a huge achievement, as they will have captured an audience and they will have engaged others into music. The thing we want to see from them is that they then provide inspiration to others and encourage improvement. Young musicians often have a band that they look up to and sometimes that can be a band that is just a little bit more experienced then they are. 

 

If we can get bands from BYC to progress from being new musicians to first time performers, to experienced performers then we can create a cycle of different levels of experience and different backgrounds sharing the stage with each other. By doing this we hope to create a cycle of musicians continually working alongside each other and improving each other. Each step along the way we will provide support and learning to the young musicians we work with in the hope that we can provide them with amazing experiences and a potential career in the future.