About

We've run Pineapster for 7 years, it’s well documented elsewhere, mostly here: www.pineapster.com. We fancied a new challenge.

Scene

December 2005, drunk, 1am, a Moolah for Malawi fundaiser, upstairs in Firebug,

We stuck our neck out, asked the nice people at Demontfort Hall and Summer Sundae, if perhaps we could run a warm up party to make some more money for charity, and put Pineapster bands in front of a new audience. 'Yes, definitely yes' they agreed. Then we approached Matt at Firebug, stupidly boasted we reckoned we could fill their pub and do it downstairs (gulp..), on a Thursday night. He laughed, and for some bizarre reason, agreed.. Our response was to ask Elbow if they fancied playing some songs for a free curry and some beer. They politely declined. We wrote a lovely letter to Steve Lamacq, promising him the same, if he turned up with a box of records. He never replied.

So on Thursday 10th August 2006, we ran the first warm up party in Firebug. Despite much panicking, come 8pm we peered through the pub windows, amazed to see 50 people queuing for the doors to open.

Somehow 400 people bought tickets!!!, 3 bands played, Dave Bartram from Showaddywaddy turned up on the door, and the various staff from the BBC 6 music did their best to work their way through the entire cocktail list. Guess what? They succeeded, and by 4am there was little alcohol left in the building. We gave LOROS £1,621, Firebug donated another £400 to make £2,021 in total. We were flabbergasted.

Scene

August 2006, drunk, 1am, a very wet Demontfort Hall Gardens.

We stuck our neck out again, reckoned we knew lots more than 3 bands who deserved to play to new audiences, and thus would those lovely people at De Montfort Hall consider a fringe festival?

'Yes, definitely yes' they agreed, and thus the fringe was conceived (though we really weren’t that sure exactly what one was). After much time spent in Firebug and the Lansdowne, a plan was hatched, get 3 gigs in 3 pubs, and the hall would lend us the comedy tent if we spoke to Leicester comedy festival. The Charlotte, Firebug and Musician all said yes, and so did Leicester Comedy Festival. Realising such things wouldn’t be cheap, we went and had a meeting with the Arts Council. They loved the plan, even reckoned they’d give us some money to run it, (though sadly this meant no work for charity). After a drunken conversation in Kings Cross Water Rats we convinced the Displacements to play the charlotte gig, Derek (a displacement dad) said 'you know what you should do? Get a bus to go from party to party!'. He was right, so we got two. And thus the open top bus plan was born. Dave Bartram agreed to compere at Firebug, Frank from the Fun Lovin' Criminals is happy to give us some kudos and DJ (we wrote Lamacq another letter, to no avail). Channel 4 reviewed it, And blimey, we sold 1100 tickets and didn't lose any money!!!

Scene

October 2007, Firebug,

Despite vowing never, ever to do it again. Those lovely people at De Montfort point out there's no way we’re getting out of running another one. We concede it’s just too much fun, and plans began for 2008. This time the bands are keener to play, and more venues want to party. DJ Magazine and Mixmag both list it as an event to watch, the BBC plug it to death, there's more media interest, and we can do it more realistically for charity (bands keener to play for free = reduced overheads = more money to give to LOROS). And we really prefer the charity aspect, makes us feel a little less guilty spending so much time on this.

So here we are. 6 parties, 16 bands, 2 DJs, 2 comperes, 2 open top buses, one night. 1400 tickets. £3 a ticket.

We want to make £4000 for LOROS, that's our aim. We hope you can help us, or we probably will vow never, ever again.