Yes, we’re pleased to announce the return of Phrased & Confused, back to once again explore that creative common ground between music and lyrics.

This year we’re shaking things up a bit, and are packing up our Phrased & Confused belongings to take over a stage at the award winning Summer Sundae Weekender festival, which for three days (8-10 August) takes over De Montfort Hall and Gardens in Leicester.

We don’t want to give the game away here, but we have got some rather special things planned and artists confirmed. For more information, check out www.phrasedandconfused.co.uk where all – well, some anyway – will be revealed.

As part of International PEN’s Free The Word! festival, the hub are producing a lively event to be held in the Late Lounge at the National Theatre on Saturday 12 April called The Insulting Cabaret. So what’s it all about I hear you ask?

Hosted by comedy duo Noble and Silver, you can expect fast-paced laughter and a thought-provoking show, packed with outspoken voices, slam poetry and comedy, banned songs and provocative texts, book covers and cartoons, live blogging and much much more.

One person’s insult is another person’s joke. Got a favourite insult or banned work? To insult or not insult - where do you draw the line? Please email insults, stories, poems or even song lyrics to insultingcabaret@gmail.com

For information on how to buy tickets and what else is going down at Free The Word!, click here to download a full brochure.

Festival Update
We are pleased to inform you that getmytickets.co.uk is now well into its three week ‘Dummy Festival Season’. This will run until January 9th, 2008 enabling us to trial the site as if it were fully operational.

Working with five festivals from around the UK, we have populated getmytickets.co.uk with out-of-date or fake ticket information to give potential users a realistic idea of what the site will look like and how it will operate. The feedback we gain from this exercise will enable us to make any necessary tweaks or changes.

Alongside the five festivals, we have also been working in partnership with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA) to bring you this online ticketing service for independent festivals across the UK.

Interested in getting involved?
The site has been set up to allow fake tickets to be purchased. If you would like to help us out by buying some (don’t worry, no money actually changes hands!), then please get in contact us via intern@thehubuk.com and we will supply you with further details on how to do this.

If you’d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com or getmytickets.co.uk@gmail.com

the hub is leading a programme of consultation and research, funded by Arts Council England, into developing an online box office service and marketing training programme especially for voluntary sector festivals, to be launched in 2008. To do this we are working in partnership with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA). Our aim is to provide for those who seek new or additional ticket outlets, a service which will increase sales and improve festivals’ ability to identify and reach bigger target audiences, either as a new ticket outlet or as in addition to existing outlets.

To help us to build a box office service and training programme that will be of real use to festival organisers, we are asking them to tell us about how they currently sell tickets. If you are a festival organiser, please do fill it in. It should only take you five minutes or so, and we promise won’t share with anyone else any of the information you give us. You can download a copy of it here, and email your completed questionnaire to us.

If you are involved in organizing more than one festival then it would be great if you could complete a questionnaire for each one.

If you’d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com