Preview Bettakultcha 4
Tom Goodhand find outs about the Leeds cultural events which is making Power Point presentations fun, honest
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Selling Bettakultcha to those not in the know is not an easy task. “It’s a night of Power Point presentations,” you say, while your friend stifles a yawn, or runs away in disgust. But the Power Point presentations at Bettakultcha are somewhat out of the norm.
Each presentation at Bettakultcha lasts five minutes, includes 20 slides which automatically move on every 15 seconds. This is extreme Power Point. Of course, as David Gray has proved time and time again, five minutes is more than enough time to bore someone, so it helps that most – but unfortunately not all – the speaker at Bettakultcha are interesting, enthusiastic and have an intriguing topic to cover – web comics, stalking celebrities, the science of cake, the design of the Apple logo and, erm, sex with robots (no, really).
“We’d both seen events like this before,” says co-founder and co-organiser Richard Michie. “Ivor [Tymchak, co-founder and co-organiser] had presented at some as well, but at the time we didn’t know if there were any in Leeds, so we decided to do it ourselves. The idea is based loosely around Pecha Kucha, which was originally developed by two architects in an attempt to boost creativity from their students. One crucial element we added was that we don’t allow any sales pitches.
“We wanted to put on a night that would be entertaining, educational, funny, sometimes bemusing but always fun. We’re both full of ideas so we try them out at different events and if they work we stick with them, and if not, they don’t appear again. We like to keep people on their toes about what to expect on the night.”
Richard and Ivor are currently planning for Bettakultcha 4 – which will take place on 21st September at the fantastic Temple Works in Holbeck. Since its beginnings on of the building’s smaller rooms, the event has grown and now takes over the large paint shop-cum-bar and attendees can bring their own booze, as well as try tasty food from good Leeds eateries like Salsa Mexicana and Sunshine Bakery. It would be fair to say that the growth of the night has surprised Richard.
“When we planned the very first event, we had endless conversations about whether 60 people would turn up or not,” he says. “In the end we just decided to have some fun and make it up as we went along. We only ever intended to do the one event but so many people kept asking us when the next one was going to be that we decided to promote another.
“To be fair though, we both had a clear idea of how we wanted it to run and look. The number of similar events we had both been to where, in-between presentations you were exposed to the dubious delights of someone’s desktop as a cursor vainly hunted for the next presentation file… what’s that all about? How hard can it be to make a seamless transition between presentations? Actually, we discovered, not that hard. You just have to give a little thought to the aesthetics of the whole thing and think it through. It’s the same with the compering of the event, Ivor likes to make people feel welcome, have a joke, tie the whole thing together in a satisfying way.”
But while they may not have expected the event to be as succseful as it is, they’ve definitely got plans for how it may grow in the future.
“The popularity of the evening has taken us by surprise and we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are only onto Bettakultcha 4 and still in our infancy,” says Richard. “At each event we try and think up new and interesting developments – like a musical interlude. We have even discussed pushing the format to its limit. At the moment, people just use the format as they have seen others use it, i.e. stand in front of the screen and talk about something that interests them – which is fine, but that doesn’t mean that someone can’t use it to put on a mini play, or perform a rap presentation over the slides. The possibilities are endless. The next event will have amplification, as we fully expect over 100 people in the audience. This means we can be more experimental with sound (I don’t think anyone has incorporated sound into their presentations as yet). ‘If people come, we will build it.’ That’s the quote, isn’t it?”
The next Bettakultcha is on 21 September at Temple Works, 7-11pm, £5, see http://bettakultcha4.eventbrite.com/
Posted on Wednesday 25th August 2010
Temple Works
Marshall Street, Off Water Lane, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 9YJ
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