VRQ Clients Raise Money For Clic Sargent NI

As the current VRQ Music Business Practitioner programme draws to an end, our clients were this week celebrating successfully pulling off two simultaneous events at different venues in Belfast City which ended up raising £200 for Clic Sargent NI who offer Care & Support for Children with Cancer.
As part of the VRQ programme coursework, our clients create, organise, promote and market a unique one-off music event in the City, one of which of which was a Versus event with two of Belfast's upcoming bands Before Machines and Eatenbybears battling it out face to face, song to song, on the dance-floor right in the middle of the venue, a concept described by the creators as being a bit like 'Jools Holland meets Robot Wars'. Expect to see more of these events popping up round the city in the months to come.

A Plastic Rose Rock Glasgowbury

A Plastic Rose received a glowing review from the BBC Across The Line show for their performance on the Small But Massive Stage at last weekends Glasgowbury Festival. Songwriter for the band Gerry Norman is currently on placement on our VRQ Music Business Practitioner programme and the band featured at Glasgowbury alongside some of Northern Ireland's best bands including Cashier No.9, Mojo Fury and La Faro. Their live tracks also featured on Monday night's Across The Line show on BBC Radio Ulster.

Check out the review here

Futurescope Celebrate Single Launch

Big news at Armstrong Learning in Belfast this month is the release of the debut EP from electronic crossover act Futurescope, which is the alter ego of Niall Hillary who has been a client on our Music Business Practitioner Qualification since February. At only 20 years old, Niall has been performing live as Futurescope all over Ireland and has notched up appearances on RTE and BBC Radio 1 as well as countless appearances at venues up and down the country. Their music is a mixture of chorus driven, euphoric layers of sound with an electronic edge, but performed live with a combination of electronics and live instrumentation and drawing influences from techno, trance and ambient music. Their self-titled EP launched at Love & Death Inc in Belfast on June 21st to a near sell-out crowd and their diary for Summer 2011 is filling up nicely.