COVID Safety
We’re so happy to be back after taking a year out due to the COVID-19 Pandemic but of course, we need to practice caution to make our event as safe as possible. We’ll be following whatever guidelines the Hippodrome have in place at the time, which will be updated here.
We’ve put in efforts to make this year’s VERVE online, as well as in-person, so that everyone can enjoy it, even if they’re put in a position of needing to isolate, details of which you can see below!
Venue
One of the biggest draws of hosting our festival at the Birmingham Hippodrome is how accessible the venue is. For full details of the venue’s facilities, head to their accessibility page here.
Address:
Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre
Hurst Street, Southside
Birmingham, B5 4TB
The Patrick Studio reception can be reached step-free from either entrance to the Hippodrome, but we recommend using the entrance on Thorp Street for easiest access to the festival.
Thorp Street
The entrance on Thorp Street will be the main entrance for visitors to VERVE. There are two automatic doors that are street level and lead into a foyer.
The Patrick Studio is on the ground level.
This entrance is fully wheelchair accessible.
Please do not hesitate to ask a member of the Hippodrome staff for help or directions to the Patrick Studio if you need further assistance.
Online-Only Tickets
All our main-stage events will have online-only tickets on sale on our Eventbrite Page from 29/11/21.
For our ten livestreamed events (listed below) an online-online ticket will allow you to watch the event live and watch it back at your own convenience.
For our non-streamed events*, an online-only ticket will give you access to our recording of the event, which will be uploaded to YouTube within two weeks of the end of the festival.
An Online-Only Pass gives you access to all livestreams and recorded events.
Eventbrite is also where we’re selling Remote Access Tickets for our workshops. You can read more about those further down the page.
*we will not be recording or livestreaming events featuring under-18s
Livestreaming
This year, we’re livestreaming ten of our top events on our YouTube Channel. Our hopes are that it makes the festival accessible to those who would struggle to get to us otherwise and allow for contingency should any of our ticket-holders need to self-isolate during the festival. We’re also planning to record the events we don’t live stream, to be released at a later date.
A physical ticket gives you access to the online stream too. Online-only tickets can be purchased from Eventbrite from 29/11/21.
BSL-Interpretation
To help make our festival as accessible as we can, we’ve arranged for a BSL interpreter to be at ten of our top-billed events. The full list is below!
Remote Workshop Places & Open Mic Slots
This year, we’re committed to making our workshops remotely accessible for those who need it, with four online places on each. Participants will be sent digital materials in advance and connect to our poets in the Hippodrome via a Zoom call.
We’ll also have something similar in place to allow for remote open mic slots, so watch this space!