Adelaide, the city of 24 hour desserts

The 2010 Format zine fair was definitely an exercise in endurance festival-attending. Firstly, because we initially meant to attend both the Blacktown Coded zine fair and fly to Adelaide the same day (which we soon realised was too ambitious, even for us) we arrived in Adelaide after most of the Academy of Words workshops and panels had finished.

BUT we still managed to attend Literary Friction, a “RockWiz-style lit game” hosted with panache by Angela Meyer and Estelle Tang and adjudicated by the ever impartial Lisa Dempster. It was an excellent start to the evening’s festivities and was soon followed by Craig Schuftan’s ‘You Can’t Stop The Musing’ disco lecture and DJ set which was amazingly fun and lived up to its promise to “put the disco back into discourse”.

The DJ set soon descended into indoor handball, rife with interstate tensions and a refusal to accept what we thought was the universal rule of ‘played on’. Format has moved from last year’s Hindley St venue to an excellent spot at 15 Peel Street so apart from its basement handball possibilities it also has a permanent zine shop which should, nay must, be checked out.

Sunday morning found us wandering the abandoned city centre in search of coffee and setting up for the Format zine fair in a timely fashion. It cannot be said enough but there are some truly lovely people doing lovely things in Adelaide and massive kudos must be paid to Sam Rodgers for organising the zine fair and for staying up so late on the Saturday night setting it up.

We managed to shotgun a table upstairs and spent the day talking, selling, trading, burrito-eating and handballing.

I think my favourite part of the day was the machine sewn portraits wall, of which Mary-Helen and I are now proud contributors to. I was incredibly sleep deprived and so I’ve managed to forget this talented lady’s name, but she was a crafty inspiration that I desperately needed.

And that’s pretty much that. Thanks Adelaide for the trades and the conversations and the karaoke and the 5am pancakes. We’ve left some of our zines at Format if you want to get a hold of them and keep an eye on their website for more exhibitions, shows and general festivites.

x amanda

Format Festival 2010

Format Festival is an amazing D.I.Y lovefest put on every year in Adelaide. You really don’t know what you are missing out on until you go, as Amanda and I found out last year. We still think of the Academy of D.I.Y and the zine fair very fondly and rate it as one of the best festivals and zine fairs we’ve attended ever and we’ve decided we can’t keep away and are going to pop down for the zine fair! Ok, I’ll stop gushing and proposing marriage to Format Collective now and tell you the details.

Key Dates and Times:
Opening night: Sat Feb 27th from 6PM.
Street Dreams Festival: March 4th-7th
Renew Adelaide forum: Friday March 12th at 6:30
The Lisa Dempster Literature Experience: Saturday March 13th
Zine Fair: Sunday March 14th, 12 till 5

Check out their excellent website Format Collective which is updated regularly.
Facial Book Event

There is still time to book a table, although spaces are limited. E-mail the awesome Sam Rodgers at samwise27 [at] gmail [dot] com by the 27th of Feb.

Ciao!
Fetus

S’all happenin’ in Adelaide!

Something that became very apparent when Amanda and I visited earlier this year for the Format Festival is that Adelaide is a pretty happening place. If you were at the MCA zine fair it’s very possible that some of your zines were collected by Sam for the Adelaide zine shop. The Adelaide D.I.Y scene is nothing short of epic, a powerhouse of motivated people pooling their strengths together to create a really amazing and strong community of creative people. Not only that, it’s a really welcoming community, yet another wonderful thing we noticed when we visited. So if you get the chance you should definitely visit.

So, below is a whole bunch of stuff that is happening in Adelaide that you should check out.
Format Collective
Format website has info about Big!, calendar dates and a blog with all the stuff that is happening. Add that to your RSS feed STAT!

Format Zine Shop Facebook Group
Join the Format Zine Shop FB group, find out what’s happening and of course send your zines there to be stocked.
Make: Do
Check out these excellent videos on the ever growing D.I.Y community in Adelaide.

VITALSTATISTIX THEATRE CO. PRESENTS – The Vitals Book, Zine & Crafty Affair

Crafty zine fair that is happening on Sunday the 19th of July. Book a stall or visit! (Click the link for more info)

That’s it for now!
-fetus

Format Festival & St5K Exhibition in Adelaide

The rumours are true, and we started the rumours, Tiny Paper Hearts are packing their nap sacks up with scissors and glue and are heading to the lovely state of Adelaide for the Format Festival and the St5K Exhibition! Not only will we be joining in the festivities we will also have a stall at the Adelaide Zine & DIY Fair which will be held on on the 14th of March.

For myself (da fetus) I’ll have some artworks in ST5K 2009, the Street Art and DIY exhibition which is also part of the Format Festival.

Here’s a rough timeline of the Format DIY Festival this year:
Format Opening Party: Sunday 1st March, 6pm @ Format, 145 Hindley st.

Exhibition: Friday 6th March, 7pm @ Notcoffee, 187 Rundle st.

Art Jam: Thursday 12th March, 7pm @ Format, 145 Hindley st.

Party: Friday 13th March, 9pm – 11pm @ Notcoffee, 187 Rundle st.
Zine and DIY Fair: Saturday 14th March, 12pm – 5pm @ The John W. Howard Memorial Hall, 145 Hindley St.

Adelaide here we come!