
Last night, I had the pleasure of attending one of Busybird’s Open Mic Night’s, and what a great experience it was!
We started the night with a quick dinner (pizza, of course!), and then welcomed readers and audience members into the Busybird studio for a couple of drinks and some nibblies before the readings started. I realised the atmosphere was incredibly supportive after speaking with a few readers; they were nervous, as can be expected, but they knew they were speaking to a group of like-minded people. Everyone there was either a writer themselves, or was supporting one, and it was really great to see so many people turn up to what I had thought would be a pretty small event.
Open Mic Night at Busybird is held on the third Wednesday of every month, and they average from 14-17 readers a night. I was lucky enough to come on a night where one of the regulars was reading some of her spectacularly funny poetry, and decided to charm us with a song afterwards.
As this was my first time, I didn’t read anything of my own, but sat back and enjoyed listening to the other fantastic stories that people had written. It’s always so interesting to see how different the genre and writing styles can be between people of different ages, gender etc. We were also introduced to a few of Busybird’s newly published books, and the author of one spoke to us about why she had written her book on domestic violence, before reading a short part of it. As you could imagine, it was a difficult thing for her to speak about and the passage that she read to us was emotive and capturing. Not only did this event give her a chance to promote her book, it was the first time she had spoken about her ordeal in front of an audience.
We finished the night off with a song from BB’s own Kev, which was utterly fantastic!
For me, the most comforting part of Open Mic Night was seeing the community that this event has created. Everyone was enjoying themselves, and meeting people that might help them better their writing, and it was truly wonderful to watch and be a part of.
Thanks, Busybird!