Brighton Visitor is your FREE independent guide to the best of Brighton & Hove and surrounding Sussex. Available online and as a free monthly magazine, Brighton Visitor is packed with all the best and latest things to see and do in a fun and easy-to-read format. Whether you’re a local or a visitor to brilliant Brighton we’re the perfect guide to the month’s highlights. And we’re most definitely buckets more fun!
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Thursday 11 - Sunday 21 March
Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival usually runs across the city every September, but this year the festival is extending its reach throughout the calendar year in celebration of the amazing food and drink that is available within the city and surrounding Sussex.
Kicking off with the three day CAMRA Sussex Beer Festival, expect quality food markets, special events and menus at restaurants and bars including Hotel du Vin, ‘the restaurant at drakes’ and Terre á Terre. The festival is also bringing two new events to the city for the first time including a two day Chocolate Festival and a one day Whisky Festival, sponsored by the Hilton Brighton Metropole.
For more information, or to find out how your business can take part in the festival, visit the Spring Harvest microsite at www.brightonspringharvest.com
Sunday 21 March
Glitter boots at the ready for ABBA Gold, a charity gig in aid of the local Martlets Hospice. Showtime Productions have teamed up with The Dancing Queens UK and a live band, for two performances at Theatre Royal Brighton. Glam up and get down to all your favourite ABBA songs including Dancing Queen, Waterloo, Fernando, Thank You For The Music, and many, many more. Audience participation is compulsory!
Tickets £11 - £21 • Performances at 2.30pm and 7.30pm • Call 08448 717 650 or www.ambassadortickets.com/brighton
Enjoy a tasty Brighton Festival Fringe in 2010
The team behind the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival is teaming up with Brighton Festival Fringe to provide great, locally produce and goodies at the Fringe City weekend events in New Road. Every Saturday you can tuck into all manner of tasty yumminess, and the food festival’s famous Big Sussex Market is going massive on the weekend of Saturday 15 May. More details at www.brightonspringharvest.com
Green dream
On Wednesday 10 March, the skeletal remains of Brighton’s West Pier were resurrected for a stunning, atmospheric light show. Organic growths of green lights brought the rusting framework to life before an appreciative (and very cold) crowd of Brightonians.
Founded by French artist Laurent Louyer, lighting studio Creatmosphere used cutting edge projection technologies to light up the charred remains of this much loved British icon, as a interplay between art, architecture, space and Water.
Funded by Tiger Beer, as part of their celebration of the Chinese Year of the Tiger, this is just the kind of creative and accessible spectacle that we’d like to see Brighton hosting every week of the year.
www.tigerbeer.co.uk/yearofthetiger
YouTube video by Brighton-based photographer Julia Claxton • www.flickr.com/photos/juliaclaxton/
Brighton Visitor issue 28 is out now
We’ve got a whopping issue of Brighton Visitor out for March 2010 – not only can you get the lowdown about great things to see and do in the city but we’re also the official brochure for the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival Spring Harvest 2010.
Spring Harvest is an all-new foodie festival and we’ve got some very tasty treats lined up from Thursday 11 - Sunday 21 March. Enjoy the Big Sussex Market, CAMRA Sussex Beer and Cider Festival, Eco Veggie Fayre, Chocolate Festival, Whisky Festival, and many many more events and special one-off nights.
This month’s Brighton Visitor also features some great fashion picked out by top designer Andrew Fionda, a visit to Nymans Garden and news about the relaunch of the seafront G-Casino.
Click here to view the magazine online or pick up a copy from Churchill Square, Brighton Pier, any major hotel, Brighton station travel centre, bus routes 7 / 25 / 13X, City Sightseeing tours or one of our street distribution points.
On Saturday the 24th April Pride and No Prejudice events group, in association with Brighton and Hove Pride, will be hosting Prides 18th ‘Bright and Beautiful’ Birthday Party! The event will take place at Bar 211 adjacent to Honey Club on Kings Road from 8pm until midnight. Tickets are £10 per person and all guests will have free entry to Honey Club after midnight. The night will consist of a Champagne reception, DJ’s, Face painting, Hypnogician – Kiegan Vallely and drag act Lady James who will be hosting the night. All money raised will be presented to the charity Brighton and Hove Pride.
The entertainment, decor and party atmosphere of the event will create a unique night, different to any other night out in Brighton people attend to on a weekly basis. Being Prides 18th year of fundraising, we wanted to celebrate in style by capturing a true retro Birthday Party theme. We hope that the night will emphasize Pride’s key message that they have conveyed for 18 years, bringing everyone together and raising awareness of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) community.
Tickets on the door or via the Pride website.
Spring time is shopping time!
A major new festival comes to Brighton & Hove this April – say ‘hola’ to the Festival a Shopping, a month-long celebration of the fantastic shopping to be had across the city.
A collaboration between Unique Brighton (the organisation that represents the main area of North Laine and the Lanes), Churchill Square, Brighton Marina, Dukes Lane, Hove Business Association and Brighton Visitor, the Festival of Shopping with showcase the best boutiques and independents alongside cutting edge designers and leading high street names. PR and press support is being provided by national agency Midnight Communications.
Featuring competitions for all the family, discounts, styling events, street promotions and more, with the Festival of Shopping this April Brighton will be going wild in the aisles!
Saturday 27 March
TV's 'Strictly' Dancer Katya Virshilas comes to Brighton for Hilton Brighton Metropole and Heart FM’s Strictly Snowball party – with a Strictly Come Dancing twist!
Katya Virshilas, who partnered Phil “the cat” Tufnell in the last series, will perform on the night with her professional dance partner Klaus Kongsdal - and will also join Heart Breakfast’s very own Tom Evans and Jack the Lad, to judge a strictly style dance-off between local business leaders.
You can join them at the Hilton Brighton Metropole for this spectacular Black Tie evening on Saturday 27th March, and enjoy a fabulous 3-course meal plus award-winning entertainment from the UK's top Rat Pack tribute singer, Dean Ager.
Round off the evening dancing to some of your all time favourite ‘Club Classics’ dance tracks with Heart Drive Time presenter, Paul Hayes.
Some fabulous items will be up for auction as well as some great raffle prizes. All money raised from the evening will be split between Have a Heart and Hilton in the Community Foundation, to support children’s community projects in the local area.
More information on the Hilton Brighton Metropole website www.hilton.co.uk/brightonmet or call Nicky WIllard on 01273 715 043
Thursday 25 - Saturday 27 March
Since taking the Edinburgh Festival by storm in 2007 and following it’s sell out success at Brighton Festival in 2008, the award-winning Traces returns to Brighton by public demand.
Traces is a high energy, dazzling display of urban acrobatics that combines traditional circus skills with basketball, skateboarding, a mix of street and contemporary dance, traditional theatre, humour and amazing audio visual effects.
Set to a soundtrack that includes hip-hop, rock 'n' roll, blues and classical music, this infectious funky pioneering new brand of circus is a thrill-a-minute that will leave you begging for more.
The five ultra talented performers reveal snippets of their own personal stories throughout the show, drawing the audience in until the dramatic climax leaves them on the edge of their seats willing them to pull off the seemingly impossible.
Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Brighton • 08448 717 650 • www.ambassadortickets.com/Theatre-Royal-Brighton
Saturday 13 March
Smirnoff this week announced the details of an exciting nightlife event set to hit the UK showcasing three of the most forward-thinking promoters in the country: Barney Sutton, Tim Sampson and Richard Cohen of the Bearded Kitten collective.
The promoters have been awarded a £5,000 Creative Grant as part of The Smirnoff Co.’s ongoing commitment to celebrate unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experiences – the type you look back on and say ‘I was there’. Having produced highly interactive areas at festivals including The Big Chill and LoveBox, Bearded Kitten will be using their Smirnoff Creative Grant to create an unforgettable night incorporating seven extraordinary New Year’s Eve parties, one every hour, on the hour.
Step back in time and celebrate the most exciting elements of the last seven decades, from the fabulous forties to the new-age noughties. Each era is to be launched with surprise performances, magical visuals and a guest appearance from one of the UK’s top Elvis impersonators. Guests can look forward to a whirlwind of music and dancing from every age including burlesque, lindy hop, rock ‘n’ roll, disco, break dancing and rave. Headlining the event are dance music duo The Freestylers and Brighton’s legendary promoters Playgroup be spinning tunes for the era defying crowd to swing their hips and tap their feet to in the second room.
Brighton’s infamous Concorde 2 has hosted everything from tea parties, biker gatherings and amusement arcades, but nothing as unique and exciting as The Forties to The Noughties. Make sure to get dressed up to get down in the style of your favourite era or don a mega-mix of all the decades.
Concorde2, Madeira Drive, Brighton • www.concorde2.co.uk • www.facebook.com/SmirnoffGB
comes to Brighton & Hove
Friday 12 March - Sunday 26 September
Wild Planet is a free outdoor exhibition from London’s Natural History Museum touring cities across the UK. And first stop on the tour is Brighton beach!
Featuring stunning images from past Wildlife Photographer of the Year competitions, including this image of a starling murmurtion over the West Pier by James Warwick.
The exhibition is free of charge and accessible 24/7 on Brighton seafront near Brighton Pier (it will be lit until 11pm every night), and a pop-up store will be onsite so you can buy prints of your favourite images.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/wild-planet-tour/wild-planet-exhibition-brighton/index.html
Sunday 23 May
Brighton Visitor is a huge fan of Modern Toss... and we’re not being rude (well, not this time). You’ll probably know these guys from their tourette-inspired creativity ranging from greeting cards through shopping bags and iPhone apps to limited edition prints.
As the Brighton Festival wraps on Sunday 23 May, you’re invited to get hands-on with their world record comic strip attempt at Madame Geisha. A continual 250 metre panel will be scrawled and mauled by the great Brighton public from 7-11pm accompanied by much merriment and oodles of booze. Sounds like our kinda night out.
Modern Toss @ Madame Geisha, 75 East Street, Brighton • Advance tickets www.ticketweb.co.uk