Last week we threw our first ever Concrete event, The Concrete Party mark 1. A creative social event to thank our writers and readers. We were totally blown away by the turn out, which was far more than we had ever anticipated. New faces from all over Birmingham and beyond, from Coventry to Russia, packed out the room that night. It was amazing to hear how some of you had come across our little magazine, no longer just through chatter on the grapevine (a lot of you due to the ridiculous promo video we made). So many people came together to make this night a success and so I wanted to squeeze in a couple more thank yous into the mix. 

The party of course had to take place at our cinephile Mecca and the unofficial Concrete HQ, Pan-Pan. This venue is one that is incredibly close to our hearts and has brought many of our writers together over the past year. Vlad and his team have supported us since the start and we were thrilled to be able to introduce new people to our favourite place in Birmingham. 

As first time event planners we were pretty nervous about how our party would go down. Thanks to our lovely team, who helped organise and plan the event, we managed to pull it off without any hitches. The freebies available were made locally or by members of our team: the badges from local artist Cait Winkler, the cards designed by Jacob Rose, and the stickers from Callie Derbyshire. Two of our writers, Callie and Ruby, hosted a small zine and crafts corner, as a taster for future events to come. I say small, however, the table was overflowing with attendees the entire night, taking polaroids with the concrete masks Ruby made, and creating mini Birmingham zines from Callie’s materials. The popularity of this pop-up was exciting to see and hopefully means we can begin to work on a full workshop in the future!

One person I can not neglect to mention was our chef for the night, the delectable Jacob Rose, also known as my fellow co-founder, Mr Concrete. The hours before our event, Jacob was bent double working away in the kitchen on cakes, pastries, bread, and more. Despite the Concrete cake looking very green and not at all grey, the feast he provided for us was absolutely amazing, with none left spare (he is now available for hire for all your industrial catering needs).

As a small magazine that has been running for less than a year, it has been heart warming and in all honestly quite overwhelming to see how quickly our audience has grown. It can be hard to imagine those stats and followers as real people with real opinions. Seeing the turn out for our event, solidified to me how real those people are. A room full of strangers who had come out on a cold Tuesday night to be a part of Concrete. I am often struck by a sense of imposter syndrome and doubts that our magazine is just too amateurish to be taken seriously. That the rate at which we are growing is unjustified and will at any moment collapse in on us. Meeting so many new and creative people and seeing their enthusiasm and willingness to be involved made me forget about all of these worries. No matter how amateur or silly we may come across, I am extremely proud to be a part of this magazine, and to have the opportunity to catalogue all the best things Birmingham has to offer. 

I hope you all enjoyed the event as much as we did and got to take home a bag full of freebies. If you missed this one, keep an eye out as we may have something coming for you in the new year 

With thanks to:

James, Callie, Ruby, Wallis, Harry, Beth, Vlad, Taylor, Cait, Alfie, Chloe, Hasna, and everyone who has written for us so far.

With Love,

Charlotte