Showcase

NOISELAB provides struggling young creatives from across the UK, the opportunity to showcase and sell their products. Each week three free master classes are hosted by a series of monthly ‘Guest Editor’s who bring in creative professionals from their personal networks. These are free to attend for young people and passerby’s; offering creative opportunities and the transfer of skills.

NOISELAB café has an affordable pricing policy and free wi-fi for young talent and arts lovers to meet, network and collaborate. Plus PC’s to upload their work to the NOISEfestival.com portfolio website.

The NOISELAB concept is a ‘living magazine’ i.e. a creative hub with arts, fashion and music under one-roof, located on one of the UK’s busiest high streets, with a monthly footfall of 2million. The NOISE Charity’s ethos is to offer a wide-range of young people to take advantage of high-quality advice and participate in a continuous programme of projects to help boost creative ambitions and careers at no cost.

Why was it created?
NOISELAB was built on the success of previous NOISE Festival initiatives, taking the charity’s virtual offering into a physical location on the streets of a city to celebrate young creative talent.  NOISELAB helps to reduce the negative impact of empty shop spaces in city centres; with selling exhibitions and free events to encourage public involvement in the creation of new art work; including those young people outside of formal education to help to increase their opportunities to work or train in the Creative Industries. The footfall gained from being located in the main shopping location delivers a diverse audience who are not usually engaged in the arts.

The aim of NOISELAB continues the NOISE Charity’s aims for up skilling young people by offering further career boosting opportunities that increase their ambition and confidence in their practice. This is achieved through regular events with artists and industry professionals across all creative sectors.

NOISELAB is committed to providing young people with employment opportunities, many of the people who worked on the refit were long-term unemployed or young people who were struggling to find work placements. The cafe staff are recruited via the ‘Back to Work’ scheme, working with people who are unemployed.

Before Photo

A list of partners that make it happen
The NOISELAB is supported and funded by Manchester City Council. Without this key partnership the NOISELAB project would not have proceeded beyond the ‘idea’ stage.

Points where the project looked threatened, how was this overcome?
Through the NOISELAB project, the NOISE team have experience that opening a space in an empty shop, is not a straight forward or low-cost venture!

• In December 2009, the central heating system in the store stopped working. Combining this with the bitterly cold weather and over 460sq feet of shop space to heat, it was decided to close the shop for a week. This decision meant that the shop was closed for retail during the busy sales period. Nine portable heaters were hired on a temporary basis so the Lab could continue with its January programme of events. With the heating finally fixed in February 2010, the landlords have agreed to reimburse over hiring costs.
• The landlords insisted that NOISE pay for their legal costs. Protracted negotiations meant their lawyers doubled their fees and their lawyers restricted the number of points we could discuss with them. These difficulties halted the opening of the space by weeks. A tenancy agreement was finally decided almost 2 months after the target opening time for the NOISELAB.
• Due to the space being vacant for 6 months prior to NOISE securing the premises, and misuse during the previous tenancy, the access lift was broken. The NOISELAB space was therefore only accessible at ground level via a flight of stairs. This rendered the space inaccessible to people with disabilities and people with prams.  We felt we wouldn’t be able to open without this accessibility, and finding an alternative venue would have proved difficult at such a late stage in the development of the project. Together with the NOISE Charity’s Executive Producer and the Manchester based estate agents and deal was finalised with the landlord, who agreed to cover the maintenance of the lift.
• From its inception The NOISE Charity has very much existed in the virtual world. Producing two successful online festivals celebrating the very best UK creative talent on www.NOISEfestival.com (with 4,000 submissions in 2006, increasing to 9,000 in 2008)
  Through these festivals NOISE has hosted a handful of ‘physical’ events and exhibitions in London, Liverpool  and Manchester that have lasted no longer than 6 weeks with a concentrated group of young artists.

Taking this into consideration and the varied audience that we planned to attend to Lab due to its high street location, we conducted a ‘Youth and Audience Engagement’ training day for all staff (the core NOISE Charity staff, and NOISELAB Staff). It helped the staff to challenge their stereotypes and discuss how to deal with and resolve difficult situations that may arise at the NOISELAB, such as a large group of young people causing a disturbance when workshops or seminars are taking place. It was run by a freelance facilitator.

• This is the first time the NOISE Team have ventured into the world of retail. The core staff at the NOISE Charity have no prior experience of working in retail, apart from brokering occasional sales via our exhibitions and website www.NOISEfestival.com.

Elements that we had to take into consideration were
- shop displays
- Merchandising to maximise sales
- pricing

- book keeping

-buying & stock control
- staffing (rotas, etc)
- window displays to promote footfall during key holidays (Valentines, January Sales, Easter etc)

- cafe and catering

To overcome this gap in the team expertise, NOISE enlisted the help of the former store manager at the Manchester branch of Magma, a leading independent bookshop that also sells products by designers. Taking his experience of running and organising a store with similar ideals as the Lab, he helped construct manuals covering Health and Safety issues to opening and closing procedures. Followed by a training day for the Lab Manager, Assistant Manager and Cafe Manager that included management training, volunteer organisation, security, staffing systems and dealing with artists (stock, receiving orders, invoicing, delivery notes etc)

What is the best story to come out of it (so far?)
NOISELAB has been opened for just over four months. The following are the most notable stories that have come out of the NOISELAB so far....

-- 10 local NOISE artists have been given the opportunity to collaborate with leading artists to dress the Lab’s high street shop window

--Kind words from the artists and Industry Professionals that have hosted events at the Lab to date:

“ Massive thanks to everyone who came down for tonight’s Q&A session, I spent so much time chatting to lovely people that I hardly got any doodling done! Really impressed with the NOISELAB space, and I will be back soon to carry on my doodles.” - Mr. Scruff DJ and Café and Tea Entrepreneur

" I am impressed with the space and NOISELAB's attitude to art, design and creativity and the people who have taken part and those yet to get involved are prime choices. It seems a shame that this space may not be around for long and I think it should be a permanent fixture for creative folk in Manchester and beyond. More power to NOISELAB!"- Pete Fowler Animator, Illustration & Vinyl Figure designer

--An official press and VIP launch that was attended by over 200 people, with guests including Elbow front man Guy Garvey, band members from acclaimed Manc band I Am Kloot, award winning Urban Splash property developer Tom Bloxham MBE. Entertainment came from Sony Records Karima Francis and DJ, illustrator and master tea maker Mr Scruff.

-- During the day, the Leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese cut the pink ribbon to officially declare the NOISELAB opened. Sir Richard returned for the evening event to offer his thoughts;

“If it’s successful [NOISELAB] can become a semi permanent part of the fabric of the city because we are permanently going to want different ways of young people being able to make a living out of their talents, especially in the creative industries.

“NOISELAB is a great idea. I hope this is not just a pilot project, maybe not in this building, but within the city and to sustain in different ways, and if it’s good enough for Manchester, it’s good enough for other places around the country and indeed around the world.”

-- It has been rewarding to see young artists engaging with industry professionals. One such encounter was NOISE Artists Emma Wyre, a young illustrator from Blackburn who first submitted her work to the festival in 2006. Through her success in 2006 she was awarded a NOISE Dream Job at Hollywood Animators (Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride& Fantastic Mr. Fox) Mackinnon & Saunders. Since this year-long work experience placement, Emma has developed a series of prototypes for dolls based on her animation and illustration work.

During January Emma attended renowned Illustrator and toy designer Pete Fowlers talk at NOISELAB. He offered her first hand advice on manufacturing her toys.

In addition, NOISE illustrators David Parkinson and Andrew Tunney, who have painted live mural onto the LAB walls have been approached by February’s Guest Editors,  SuperSuper magazine for an illustration commission, to be printed in a future issue of the fashion and style magazine.

The impacts of the project and how you have measured them (eg how many people through the door and where they have come from)

NOISELAB has had approximately 19,500 visitors walk through its doors (calculations from data collected from January 2009 – March 2009, via a donated ‘video turnstile’ visitor counter installed in the doorway of the space.)

For the purpose of the NOISELAB funders to monitor the cultural impact and success of the project, NOISELAB is continuously evaluated through gathering quantative and qualitative data. As with all NOISE Charity projects, we also conduct an ongoing evaluation process to observe the success of the NOISELAB.

NOISE gathers qualitative information via:
--Feedback forms handed out to event attendees after each happening (which includes space to write down ideas for future events, and how they enjoyed the one that they attended)
--Photo documentation of each event by a young NOISE artist
--Video documentation of each event by a team of young NOISE Filmmakers
--Quotes gathered from attendees, Facebook pages, comments on the NOISELAB website (www.NOISElab.co.uk)
--Staff/ volunteer profiles

NOISE gathers quantative data via:
--Feedback forms handed out to event attendees after each happening (includes fields such as age, postcode, gender, artforms practising)
-- NOISElab.co.uk web site statistics use Google Analytics and Facebook fan page visitor statistics
-- an installed ‘video counter’ above the entrance to the NOISELAB tallys footfall through the NOISELAB doors
-- Looking at the interest in events posted on Event Brite, a free online ticketing system and Facebook
-- Tracking the number of fans on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter
-- Staff/ volunteer profiles
-- volunteers counting visitors

In addition to data collected about the attendance of events, NOISE gathers profiles of each individual who has worked in the NOISELAB (volunteers, carpenters, electricians), with a particular interest in looking at those who have found employment through their involvement in the NOISELAB.

This ongoing evaluation helps the NOISE Charity to address elements that are working and aspects of the project where changes need to be made. The projects’ thorough evaluation will act as blueprint for the NOISELAB model to be rolled out by other cities, nationally.
During the projects first four months, the NOISELAB

• Has hosted 31 events including masterclasses, performances and workshops.
• Which were attended by over 1,500 people
• An estimated 19,500 visitors through the doors of the Lab (video count data)
• 72 artists selling products
• NOISE has licensed the work of 22 artists for postcard and t-shirt prints
• Engaging over 90 communities groups and 24 schools, colleges and universities across the Greater Manchester region

Budget/costs explanation
£30,000 for the initial refurbishment. Ongoing monthly staffing, utilities, store related security, and programme of events costs and related marketing and PR.

Income details
The NOISELAB project is funded by Manchester City Council for an initial 6 month period
NOISELAB products are sold on a commission, sale and return basis, with the income ploughed back into the running costs to keep the NOISELAB open.

A list of media clips, cuttings and websites/blogs etc.

The Sunday Times / Culture– Newspaper/ website
The Daily Telegraph / Saturday - Insert
Manchester Evening News - Newspaper (x2)
Look Magazine (April Issue to be published)

BBC Radio Manchester
All FM (Manchester)
XFM (Manchester)

BBC News – Website
Manchester Confidential – website
Bonafide Magazine blog – website
YELP Online review – website
Artsphere – website
Style Bibile - website
Manchester Gossip – website
Doodlesplatter – website
Juxtapoz- website
Manchester City Council – website
Trafford Council - website

Over 30 artist blogs