Musicians needed for one day festival

Monday, 26 January 2015

Organisers of this new event would love you to come and make fabulous music in venues all around Todmorden centre to make it a proper festival. They have very little money so you 'd be doing it for free tea and cake probably! All sorts of music is welcome - acoustic or electric.

"Alternatiba" is an idea that comes from a grassroots movement across the channel from which developed the festival of Climate Alternatives, "Alternatiba" (www.alternatiba.eu). It was born in the Basque country and is working amazingly well. Several other French towns have held similar inspiring festivals.

The essential force of an Alternatiba is to combine a temporary "village" of concrete alternatives occupying the streets, with a weekend of round tables on all aspects of the climate issue, and presentations and workshops on anything that can be thought to contribute to responding to the climate crisis and to a truly sustainable and socially just society, locally or internationally. All this in a popular, festive framework, with local food, music, street theatre, etc.

Organisers think there are many, many more people who are drawn in by concrete alternatives rather than by the talk-shops. There are already more than 40 cities planning Alternatibas from here to the COP21 (the next big climate summit) in Paris, and the first half dozen Alternatibas have together gathered more than 40,000 people.

They point out that is also an excellent way of preparing for COP21, allowing people to inform and mobilise really widely without promoting false hopes about the outcome in Paris. On the contrary, the message is first of all that changing things starts at the grassroots level, in communities and regions.

Help this movement spread across Europe by supporting Alternatiba in Todmorden.