Belper People Profile

We've just found this website for local businesses which we thought we should be on. Check it out on:BELPER PEOPLE !!

Building Plan final decision

We have decided we cant afford the extra rent for the other building joined to our Jamjar room. After the survey done, the surveyor had said we would have to put too much money into making it safe, which unfortunately we couldn't afford as well at paying the extra rent on the building.

It was going to be our own dance studio, so instead we will look at improving the facilities in the main room for dance projects.

Build-a-Band Poster

Build-a-Band Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The Build-a-band project is starting a week after people get back from the half term break.
It will run on every Tuesday night from the 14th June. This project has been in the pipe line for a while, but it seems now we are involved in quite a few events it would be even better to have some bands who started from our centre.
Plus the people involved in this project will get some amazing opportunities to play some exciting live events.
Come down and meet some new musicians and have fun Jamming the first few weeks. Hopefully see you on the 14th June.

New Company Name?

We have been setting a company up to act as the Drop Inn's trading arm, with all the extra money passing through for all the events. We just need a name for it, any suggestions please email us

Jamsource tent Promo

Jamsource tent Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The crazy poster for the crazy Jamsource tent @ Out The Box Festival.

We'll be Jamming with open Source Art creating some unique sounds and visuals to compliment the already exciting local festival.

Graffiti Academy Live

The Drop Inn Teamed up with Urban Canvas and Urban Projection to help put on an under 18's night on at Donut Studios in Chesterfield. The night was organised by Urban Canvas who had ben running a graffiti project at the centre and set up a group of young people known as The Graffiti Academy. This event was set up to exhibit the work and hopefully sell some of the art work on. The event also included live workshops from Urban Projection, who were running Light Graffiti workshops and supplying some amazing visuals for the DJ back drop. The VJing was very impressive, see the video below. The young people in attendance were more attracted to the light graffiti workshops which were a huge success.
The Drop Inn supplied the resident youth DJ Skairpigg and DJ Shookz who has ran DJ workshops for over 6 months at The Drop Inn centre. The music was enjoyed by a group of young street dancers from the Donut Centre. Unfortunately the music was a bit too heavy and a bit much for the younger members attending the centre. The Drop Inn aims the Friday night youth provisions to the young people on the street and attracts more 14 - 17 year olds, where as the Graffiti Academy Live was geared up more for 11 - 14 year olds with live workshops to engage in. If The Drop Inn was to get involved next time we would know to pitch the music for a younger age. It was still fun all around. Our resident youth DJ really enjoyed it. It was also very nice to finally make contact with The Donut Studio and meet the staff you guys are doing a brilliant job, keep up the good work. It was also a great pleasure to finally meet Urban Projections which we would love to do some projects in the near future with. Please check their video for the night out below.

Festival Vibe Pics of BTF '11

Please Check out the Festival Vibe pitures of Bearded Theory Festival they look awesome!

BTF 2011 - Film

Here is what we did over the 3 days at Bearded Theory 2011. We were very busy for a tiny organisation. It was an incredible response from all who attended our arena, we had so much fun doing it. We hope to return in future and do more, it was one of the best weekends of The Drop Inn's life. Thanks Again BTF !!

BBC Radio coverage of Bearded Theory 2011

We get a few mentions through this show. Whitemoor were really good, they impressed everyone and covered the whole festival in promo stickers and posters, thats the way to do it Derby! Check the BBC Interview with Whitemoor who had just come out of the Drop Inn arena after playing their very enjoyable performance. Looking forward to seeing you guys in the near future!

BTF 2011 Day 3

What an amazing weekend so far, we are on the final day now. After the hectic and very lively performances the Friday and Saturday we have programmed a more chilled out line-up for the Sunday with acoustic, Jazz and a Hip-hop DJ to finish. To open the Sunday we had an acoustic Duo from Derby called "Hayley and Andra" who were beautiful to listen to first thing Sunday, it really set the mood for the planned line-up for the rest of the day. The second act was booked by Bearded Theory and from Sheffield called "Chloe Jade" who is a solo acoustic artist, all we can say is wow what a beautiful and powerful voice. So far so beautiful, what a contract to the heavy music we played last night. Perfect balance. Check her out - Chloe Jade "Paradise 9" followed Chloe-Jade who were also booked by Bearded Theory and played some psychedelic-rock which picked the pace up a bit but remained chilled enough for the Sunday vibe. Next we had Belper Based Band "Unknown Creatures" who are an experimental Jazz / breaks band, very interesting and very creative music. They were very much appreciated with there funky Jazz styles. They don't rehears it's almost like a Jazz Jam session where all 3 musical geniuses follow each other and take it in turns to lead. Amazing! The 5th Sunday act sees the return of "Jasper in The Company of Others" one of the amazing bands to play on the Friday early on. They have returned already to give the crowd more of their happy Vibe excellence. This time round there was twice as many people in our tent. What a performance, one of the high lights of the weekend!! "Richard Clark and the Rafters" from Worcester and known as illustrators in music stepped on the stage to lead up for the Sunday headline. Their style was very technical and original again. No-one was jumping around to these guys just sat mesmerized by the lovely sounds. The last of the Sunday Bands saw "Robinson" who is also from Worcester and has played the Bearded Theory before. He returns after touring America with some amazing sounds. The gypsy style music was awesome and got everybody back up drinking and having a lot of fun. Great end to the live performances check Robinson out here: England Bleeding Music Video The last act of the weekend to close The Drop Inn arena is "Squigz" a insanely talented Hip-hop DJ, master at turntablism, scratching that itch. He wowed people with his beat juggling and scratching skills. What a great show to end with, we've covered as many genre's of music we can this weekend, this was the final wow till our tent finished and went quiet. Over the weekend we have had Graffiti Workshops, Art Installations, Jazz, Acoustic, Rock and Blues, Indie, Gypsy Rock Electro, House, Techno, Dubstep , Drum and Bass, Beat boxing, MCing, and many more styles. Di-versity! We've had so much fun, please check out the film documenting the whole weekend. Massive Thanks to All involved all who supported us and especially Bearded Theory for having us there.

Website over 500 hits

Our new generation of website has had over 500 hits in it's first Month. Most of this is due to the success of the Drop Innvaders game. We are hoping to do a press release about the website after the Bearded Theory Festival is out the way.

BTF 2011 Day 2

Opening our the second Day of The Drop Inn Arena is "Smoke Stack" a Worcester based Rock and Blues band. They blew everybody away with there amazing performance, unbelievable Rock and Blues which instantly drew people into our tent and set us up with an amazing start to the day. Through the day as well as the live entertainment on the stage we also have a 30 foot Graffiti wall being created through the day from Urban Canvas. Check them out here - Urban Canvas.

The second band to perform was Belper Based band "Whitemoor" who have been very supportive of The Drop Inn over the years, and always put on a brilliant show and get great media coverage. They were interviewed by Radio Derby straight after the performance. Well done Whitemoor it was a great performance, we're very happy to have a widely recognised local band perform on our stage.

"SuperKaine" were the 3rd band to perform who are also from Worcester. This 3 piece band make such a heavy sound which absolutely rocked out tent and pushed the sound systems limits. Proper Rock and Rock! We had seen SuperKaine perform as only a two piece band at our 10th Birthday weekend, after we heard they now have a new bass player as an extra person we booked them straight away.

The next act was "Panic Dance" a due from London who were booked by Bearded Theory to perform in our tent. They were very different but also very good. Using a laptop with backing music they produced, it gave a electro feel to the live music you were hearing, great performance which set up perfectly to our main headline. Check Panic Dance out on - Panic Dance SoundCloud.

HEADLINE: "THePETEBOX" one of the Uk's best Beat boxers! The Petebox absolutely boomed out tent we had 800+ people crammed into out arena all mesmerized by this beat box legend from Nottingham. We had all generations of people watching this completely different kind of performance. Definitely the busiest response of the weekend, and a great choice for headliner! check THePETEBOX out: Where is My Mind Performed by THePETEBOX.

Check out this vid of our headline act THePETEBOX on facebook:

THePETEBOX @ BTF 2011

After the unbelievable performance from our headliner, we followed it up with our resident Youth DJ's Patchwerk and Skairpigg, who had attended our DJ workshops ran by Shookz. After the workshops they kept practicing their DJ skills and became resident DJ's at our National Award Winning 'Safe Raves' under 18's night. Now they are playing in front of 100's of people at massive local festival. As Shookz said in the interview, "I'm proud of them!" We all are, what an amazing Youth opportunity! Well done to both of you for standing up there and performing outstanding DJ sets.

The 3rd DJ to step up is known as the dub demon "Operand" who we met through running events at our own centre and aslo one of the resident DJ's for Kindafunkyradio.com. Operand tore the place appart with some fearsome dubstep nasties.

 Taking over from the dubstep was "Maestro" who boomed out the Drum and Bass which attracted a lot of ravers to our tent who stomped and kicked the grass away. The atmosphere was unreal, the teant was busier again, alive with everybody inside dancing and skanking to the sounds of Drum and Bass.

Finally our last act to close the Saturday night was "Shookz" a Local signed DJ and producer who has made an appearance on Radio 1 and played some massive venues and festivals. Shookz was playing alongside "MC Spyda" one of the legendary MC's you may know from the Pendulum track Tarantula. This was our 2nd Headline for the weekend. It finished the second night on a massive high again with everyone leaving our tent bouncing. Check out a track from Shookz and MC Spyda: Balaclava.

You can't really compare the second day to the first because of the extreme diversity between the artists performing. The second day was much busier, but the whole festival was much busier on the Saturday. Was a phenomenal response over the two days, we are absolutely buzzing about what we've done so far, really looking forward to our programmed chilled out band Sunday tomorrow.

BTF 2011 Day1

Our first day at Bearded Theory and we are still panicking around setting things up. We have all the sound system set up and stage 80% ready. Just need to finish walking all the art work around, attach the graffiti boards to a fence and finish moving the stage around to work with bands and a movable DJ box. First band has arrived and everything is ready ... Lets rock this! Opening the Drop In Arena is Youth Band "Monkey's Uncles" a Youth band from Pinxton, Derbyshire. Their Youngest member is 14 and oldest 17. What an opening! They are an Arctic Monkey's tribute band and were amazing! Well done guys. Next up we've got "Jasper in Company of Others" (Jasper Tunes) Who are a Indie Folk band from Worcester. Jasper is one of our volunteers, and has run some amazing live music projects with our youth. They had a brilliant response, "Happy Vibes all around." The 3rd Band is another Worcester based band called "This Wicked Tongue" They absolutely rocked our tent with there big stadium style sound, really powerful rock and roll music. (Check their SoundCloud) 4th We have good friends of The Drop Inn, Belper Based band "Riptide" who are a high energy indie / pop band. They performed really well with some of the catchiest songs. The kind that were in our head all day. Cheers Riptide, check this track out - This Could Be The One. What an awesome start to the Weekend! The bands were all amazing and all so different in their own style. Quick celebration for band diversity for the first day. Now we are swapping over to DJ's ... Our opening DJ is a local house DJ and producer called "Dirty Sh**TY Bear" who warmed the stage up nicely with some rolling deep house beats, funky fresh and a nice smooth change over from Indie bands. Nice work Mr Bear. Check his SoundCloud out (Dirty Sh**ty Bear) Stepping the tempo up a bit from house to more Elecro House, we have "The Stunt Brothers" who are based in Matlock, Derbyshire. They have played loads of venues and ran their own electro night around Derbyshire. Everybody is waking up and starting to party hard in our tent. Following the Stunt brothers is "Ricky Meakin" who runs a big electro night called Love Bug and is a resident for Gatecrasher. Things are warming up even more in The Drop Inn arena, it's now fully converted into a club style night. (Ricky Meakin SoundCloud) The 4th DJ of the night is "Nathan Hadley" who is a resident for Gatecrasher and also a resident DJ out in Ibiza. Now the techno starts, floor filler after floor filler. Our Arena suddenly gets a lot more packed with crazy dancers loving the Ibiza style vibes. (Nathan Hadley) The closing DJ and last performer of the first night at Bearded Theory is "Dave Angle" another close friend of The Drop Inn and runs Kindafunkyradio.com. Angle played some absolute blinding tunes, whipping the crowd into a dance frenzy. What a finish to the first night, everyone left with huge smiles on their face. We had an amazing first day, Thank You for all the support on our first day, same again tomorrow. Well kind of, we have a totally different line-up style with 2 headline acts!!

Future Sponsors

We've sent some begging letter out at the beginning of the year, and heard back from a couple of companies who are willing to sponsor our community project. Please let us know if you know of an established company willing to sponsor our Local Youth Project, currently we only have one Sponsor. Companies can sponsor us a week a year which is £200, a lot of money to us, but it would mean then we would only have to find 51 more weeks of rent next year.

Please help us find a couple more sponsors,

Thank You x

Heage DnB night II

After the success of the First DnB night set up by Shookz, the Windmill Inn booked 3 more nights.
This was the second one and saw some more people turning out to have a bounce.
Each time the Drop Inn gets £40 for the hire of their P.A system and Decks, (Frankensteins Arms and head)

Out The Box Festival Promo

Out The Box Festival Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Just a little Promotional Profile Picture ready for Out The Box Festival June 17th.

DJ booth for BTF

DJ booth for BTF, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We build our own customised DJ booth for The Bearded Theory Festival. This was after panicking realising we didn't have a table big enough for all the DJ equipment.

It does look quite smart even if we do say so our selves.

Company update

If we haven't told you before we are in the process of setting up a sister company to the Drop Inn, which will act as a trading are to sell the services of the charity at a commercial rate. The profits will then feed back into the charity like a social enterprise to support and stabilize the charity financially in the future.

Graffiti Academy Live Poster

Graffiti Academy Live Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Advert for the Graffiti Academy Live event where we are supplying the music to go with Urban Canvas and Urban Projections workshops. We'll be bringing along our two Youth DJ's

Willington Arts Festival illustration board

Willington Arts Festival illustration board, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This was one of the illustration pieces the young people at Willington Arts festival created. The Young people who took part had to think how to get different shades and create illusions of different colours using patterns and different shading techniques with the selection of limited coloured marker pens.