Are you missing live entertainment? Do you love seeing Abergavenny’s home-grown talent performing in our pubs, theatres and music venues? Lockdown has put severe restrictions on all of us and though there have been many wonderful online entertainment initiatives both regionally and nationally there hasn’t been a local online hub for Abergavenny-based performers. Until now.
The new Facebook group ‘AberG Access All Areas’ was started with two aims in mind: firstly, to provide all of us stuck at home during lockdown with entertainment (both live-streamed and recorded) from a huge range of talented local people; and secondly, to provide a platform for all our local freelancers and professional musicians, entertainers, performers, speakers and educators to maintain their profile and possibly earn a little (through Paypal tips/donations for their livestreams, for example) whilst all the region’s venues are closed.
The group has very quickly reached 300 members but really needs to grow further in order to attract more content. Please join at www.facebook.com/groups/abergaccessallareas/ and help to spread the word. Posts of all kinds are appreciated – whether that’s a Zoom recording of your choir, a livestreamed gig from your garage, a YouTube clip of you reciting a poem, or a TikTok of a cookery demo. Fitness instructors might post links to their online classes, and walkers might show us footage of their latest local routes. (Almost) anything goes! The only expectation is that there should be a local connection. Eventually (in the continued absence of other face-to-face opportunities!) it would be great to hold online events such as a youth talent competition, or a bake-off. The group will be what its members decide to make of it.
There’s absolutely no substitute for live music, or getting together with others ‘in real life’ participatory experiences. But, for now, the virtual world is all we have – so let’s support our local performers, and fill the entertainment void as best we can.
Jo Webb
