The Cutting Room Experiment

There's an empty square in Ancoats next to St. Peter's Church called Cutting Room Square. It's a new public square created as part of the regeneration of the area. It's pretty quiet up there these days. But that's all going to change on June 20 when the Cutting Room Experiment takes over.

What's it all about? Well, nobody knows yet. The organisers are soliciting ideas for events across 12 different streams of programming, including literature, architecture/design, art and pop music. The way it works is that people submit their ideas for what they think should happen, and the winners of open online voting decide what actually gets to happen. It's a little similar to the way the Mapping Creativity project worked, but with a different focus and on a different scale.

Current contenders include some unsurprisingly flashmobby suggestions, like the biggest Space Hopper race ever, an enormous silent disco and a mass dance routine to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The literature stream makes for particularly interesting reading with some strong, writing-led ideas alongside some stranger ones (Jane Austen and zombies???) Votes close on Friday, May 29.

The resulting events will be funded by regeneration bodies, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and New East Manchester.

Got questions? Want to know more? Well, you're in luck. Organiser Jon is inviting curious bloggers down to the Bay Horse on Thursday May 21 at 6:30 for what may be Manchester's first ever "blog launch," constituting a chat about the event and a free pint.