Tuesday, 6 August 2013

After Party @ The Crumbling Cookie.. RvB:UK

So after a long day having the time of our lives it was time to have some further fun in the form of drinking beer and watching three fantastic bands @ The Crumbling Cookie in Leicester (Great Venue!).

The Crumbling cookie is a fantastic venue between Leicester town centre clock tower and Mosh (Yeh that street, lane place with KFC and HMV on it). A coffee shop by day and a bar by night its a great little hideaway with a lot of personality and many other events going on throughout the year.  

First on the scene was One Suspicious Monkey. I'm not trying to say a dodgy ape was hanging around, that's just the awesome name of their band. Anyways their sound i would describe as 'Folky' with a touch of craziness. Altogether it's fecking brilliant, they had me boogieing on down in the middle of the room. A short message from the band will follow this paragraph via the magic that is moving image. 

Second on were the fantastic 'Harlequin's Kiss' who are a heavy rock band with blues influences. Basically a mix between the Blues Brothers and Metallica i guess, however i am extremely poor with music as many people who know me will tell you. This band were phenomenal and very talented. An short video with the Bassist of the band, Ed Kirby, follows this paragraph. 


The Final band of the evening were 'Preacher and the Bear'. Now im not going to lie, by this stage i was probably between 8-12 pints down and feeling very worse for wear. However i managed to keep going to the end of their set and from what i saw i can see why people rate them so highly. The band play the blues... and nothing makes them more cooler than that. Fantastic performers and nice chaps! Sadly i wasn't able to film the guys explaining who they were because of my state but i highly recommend watching them if you ever get the chance!

Thats all about the after party from a band point of view. It did also give me a chance to talk to some more of the people who attended the weekend from all over the country and i have to add that they were all awesome! 

Typing in the bands names on twitter should find their accounts or if they don't have accounts, tweets about them and their performnaces!!

Staceo out.

(Tom)


The usual places to find us at diamond sword are:

Youtube: Diamond Sword
Twitter : @diamondswordvid
Facebook: facebook.com/DiamondSwordProductions
Blogger: diamondswordproductions.blogspot.co.uk

Conor Twitter: @thetx1000

Nick Twitter: @NickJISmith
Tom Twitter: @Xstactik
Liz Twitter: @LizNels0n


Monday, 5 August 2013

Diamond Sword goes to Red vs Blue: UK 2013

Venue: Phoenix Square 
Date: 2nd - 4th August 2013
Hosted by: Sidefest





Sidefest is an event organising company who have been running film festivals and game conventions for almost 10 years! That’s a hell of a lot of experience and it definitely shows in the energy and effort each individual puts in to their work. They’re extremely passionate about promoting creative individuals and independent businesses. They also Host band nights and a quiz night called ‘Its all Geek to me’ which all of us at diamond sword attend and help run on a regular basis. When it comes to the quiz, I personally fail to do well and tend to celebrate if I know one out of the 60-80 answers available.

Wristband for the event


Anyway moving swiftly onto the weekend. I attended the event on the Saturday to take part in a panel hosted by Jason Boomer, the man behind the event , who looked as calm as anything when so much was happening around him.




On the Panel with myself were two other companies, ‘Say What Now productions’ and ‘Mair Perkins ltd Animation and illustration’. Say What Now productions is an online entertainment and journalism company. They produce a constant flow of content including podcasts, articles and videos in which the topic is mainly, if not all the time, gaming. I met Greg and Adrian from the company and instantly got on well with them... they're awesome. They have a unique determination to do well with their team and it shows in how successful they already are.

My seat on the panel
Mair Perkins ltd is a creative agency based in Derby specialising in 2D animation, motion graphics and illustration for business, entertainment and education. I can say the same of Mair and her boyfriend who joined her at the festival. Both great people and i can see how Mair has come so far with her work due to her commitment and personality.

The panel focused on the ups and downs of making creative content and how those who wish to create their own content can market and organise their material. It gave me the opportunity to share my personal views as well as those of Conor and Nick, who sent me through a ‘briefing’ type document thing beforehand.


Being on the panel also acted as a good advertisement for the company and I felt I was learning a lot of stuff from the other guys sat on the panel with me.




Gamers at the event



Later on in the afternoon I went to the gaming area which was AWESOME! It’s great to be around so many other people with similar interests to ourselves. The passion for competing on all gaming platforms, from xbox to card games, was great to see.

Gav: Founder of XBLGAMEHUB (left)
Greg: Member of SWNPRODUCTIONS
At this point i met Gavin Divers, the founder of the very successful XBLGamerhub, who are the 'top search on google' when you type in various things to do with tournaments and xbox'ing (this is what Gav told me... and then proved). I gained a lot of experience and insight into how to make a successful business just by talking to him. 

So all in all it was an awesome day and i felt privileged to be the person there representing us. Now for the most important part of the day... getting drunk... (See next blog: THE AFTER PARTY @ THE CRUMBLING COOKIE)


You can contact the other companies mentioned through their twitter accounts listed below...


Sidefest: @Side_Fest
RvB:UK: @RvBUK
Say What Now Productions: @SWNProductions
Mair Perkins: @MairPerkins
XBLGamerub: @XBLGAMERHUB

and then the usual places to find us at diamond sword are:

Youtube: Diamond Sword
Twitter : @diamondswordvid
Facebook: facebook.com/DiamondSwordProductions
Blogger: diamondswordproductions.blogspot.co.uk

Conor Twitter: @thetx1000

Nick Twitter: @NickJISmith
Tom Twitter: @Xstactik
Liz Twitter: @LizNels0n


Diamond Sword

This is the start of us blogging our journey from here on in.

For those of you reading this who don't know who we are... we are a group of best friends who enjoy gaming together. With this we thought why not create a company on different outlets of social media in which we can play games we've never played before and record ourselves doing it to share with you lucky (or not so lucky if you think its crap) people.

We also enjoy going to gigs and messing around creating short sketches so we will be creating videos that showcase us doing that as well.

We will begin our constant flow of weekly videos commencing the first or second week of October as this is when we will be back together and able to create our content properly.

So watch this space and we will eagerly await your feedback on our ridiculous experiences :)

Tom.


Youtube: Diamond Sword
Twitter : @diamondswordvid
Facebook: facebook.com/DiamondSwordProductions
Blogger: diamondswordproductions.blogspot.co.uk

Conor Twitter: @thetx1000
Nick Twitter: @NickJISmith
Tom Twitter: @Xstactik
Liz Twitter: @LizNels0n