Launch Email 9

A year of free gigs and drinks after Covid

September 11, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Your latest curated crop of Camden highlights, for enjoyment at home and beyond. Invite your (five) friends!

> Friday 11 September 2020

We're tumbling into an uncertain autumn, but there's plenty going on in the area to keep your spirits up. Read on...

 1. A Year of Free Gigs + Drinks at Roundhouse 

Chalk Farm's Roundhouse is running Big Gig Lotto, a prize draw offering a ray of hope to live music fans (and some decent freebies) for when the venue returns after Covid - but you'll need to hurry, as entry closes TONIGHT. A £5 entry will net one lucky person a year's supply of tickets to gigs of your choice, with free drinks in the VIP bar on arrival, and champion membership for stage-side access. Finally there's one of photographer Joanna Vesty's Custodians of Covid gloss prints. Her website is well worth checking out for stunning images of much-loved theatres and music venues during lockdown, too.

   2. Shop at Camden's Vagina Emporium  

Camden Market's trailblazing

Vagina Museum

 sadly still remains shuttered due to coronavirus. The future of the project - which is as much about its empowering and educational events programme as it is the revealing exhibitions - hangs in the balance, but you can help out, by picking up some of the unique, often witty items 

. From genital-celebrating jewellery and art prints, to the latest eco menstrual products, and do check out their range of vulva facemasks - real conversation-starters.

 

 3. KX Design District 

London Design Festival

kicks off tomorrow (and runs until the 20th), with the challenges of 2020 being tackled in some innovative, suitably design-led ways. Camden's very own

Design District in King's Cross

is

, where stores like Tom Dixon and Wolf & Badger have showcases throughout. Do make sure to get involved with French designer Marlele Huissoud's

, which requires socially distanced visitors to use footpumps, breathing strange life into the artwork, but only if the group of strangers work together.

   4. School Local  

As Meet the Parents founder Madeleine Holt tells us this week,

 “if you’re working from home and supporting local shops, why not do the same when it comes to the local schools? It’s one of the most powerful things you can do to strengthen your community.”

As parents start thinking about where their kids might go next year, Madeleline's series of events (this year being held online and in real life) promote the societal benefits of attending Camden's inclusive state schools. She's optimistic that changing attitudes in light of Covid present a big an opportunity for a truly comprehensive education. 

   5. Tete a Tete, 2020 style  

The celebrated annual opera festival has adapted its 2020 programme with interactive broadcasts that can be explored online, combined with a series of officially-sanctioned live performances, currently taking place at The Cockpit theatre. There are loads of events taking place throughout September, and a large archive of previous operatic innovation to sit back and watch on their 2020 festival website.

 Need a Local COVID Test? 

If you've been frustrated by the Government's track and trace website and its infamous long-distanced results, here's a very handy 

on walk-in centres closer to home. Put together by a Camden resident who couldn't find info anywhere about the testing centre that sometimes pops up behind The Forum on Highgate Road, it's grown to include testing locations in all the other London boroughs.

  • Sri Lankan food specialists Hoppers King's Cross are continuing in the spirit of Eat Out Help Out with a particularly tempting series of unlimited late night feasts. Gorge on as many of their famous hoppers and dosas as you can manage from 9.30pm onward for £25, Mon-Thurs until the end of the month. 

  • Another of the local attractions to see now, before the tourists return, is the lovely London Transport Museum, which reopened this week. They're offering discounts on annual tickets for anyone who lives within walking distance, too.

  • Gray's Inn Road's pioneering Calthorpe Community Garden are running an urban food growing course every Friday this month, alongside a gradual return to their full programme of activities and sports. 

  • If you have a bike in need of some TLC, or lockdown has inspired you to try out life on two wheels, then The Bicycle Project are on hand to help. They're taking up residence at the Zabludowicz Collection every Wednesday to offer FREE bike maintenance and advice for novices. Camden Council have just installed 35 new bike storage hangers across the Borough, too.

  • The Camden Forest 2025 is a project to plant 2025 urban trees in the back gardens of local residents by the year bearing the very same number. They are asking adults and children to create a poem or short piece of writing for a chance to win a tree book from Owl Bookshop, on the theme of what does your favourite tree in Camden mean to you?

  • Feeling crafty? Hampstead's Age UK Camden want your help in creating an intergenerational community quilt. It will honour the way the borough has come together over recent months to make new connections and support older neighbours. Submit a handmade patch by next Friday for it to be stitched into a special piece of history.

  • Alternative Camden duo Simon Pitkeathley and Indy Johar have written an article on their vision for a Covid era London based around ultra-safe 'deep work', a 'city of villages', 24-hour polytechnics and fully electric travel. Read it for some forward-thinking urban inspiration.

  • Book now for the return of NW Live, which brings classical music to new and often-overelooked audiences in neighbourhood settings across Camden. Next up is a celebration of the area's multicultural make-up, tracing migrant routes from the Middle East, and West Africa with music, performed in the beautiful Holy Cross Church on Cromer Street. 

  • Autumn sun is set to shine for the next few days, so if you’re looking for an excuse to get outside after yet another day of homeworking then join Transition Kentish Town for an evening of local apple picking this Thursday. They’ll be harvesting neighbourhood trees of unwanted ripe fruit from 6.30pm.

Camdenist is collaborative and transparent by design. We'd love all locals to participate, so we've built a form where you can send us ideas on who or what we should be featuring. You may even want to produce the piece yourself? Let us know.

 Well worth following, too...