Starting with a question, not a schedule
Every Arts & Events piece at the journal begins with a plain question: what will a reader still want to know in a year? A festival programme answers what happens on Saturday at two o'clock. It rarely answers why the street fair has run in the same church car park for decades, or how a volunteer crew turns a bare hall into a concert space in an afternoon.
So before anyone books a ticket or a train, I sit down with a notebook and write the question for the story. If I cannot state it in one sentence, the assignment is not ready. This sounds severe, but it saves us from the common trap of writing a long list of events that is out of date by Monday. The question decides who we phone, what we photograph and what we leave out.
The phone calls before the visit
Most of the real work happens before we arrive. A festival organizer, a cinema manager or a choir director is busy in the final week, so we write a short, courteous note explaining who we are, what we hope to understand and how much of their time we need. We say plainly that we are a small independent magazine, and that we will not print anything they have not had a chance to correct for accuracy.
Then comes a call, usually in the early evening when the hall has quieted. I ask about the first year, the awkward year, the year the weather ruined everything. Those answers are the story. I also ask what a first-time visitor tends to get wrong, because that becomes the practical advice readers actually use.
- Confirm names, spellings and titles by phone, then again in writing
- Ask what a newcomer should know before arriving
- Note who else could speak to the same event
On the ground during mid autumn
Autumn is a generous season for this beat. Harvest suppers, film nights, lantern walks and small music series fill community halls and theatres across the country. Our contributors arrive early, before the crowd, because that is when people have time to talk and when the room still shows how it was made.
We carry very little: a notebook, a camera with a quiet shutter, a paper schedule in case the phone fails. We do not record guests without asking, and we do not take pictures of children without a parent's say-so. Listening matters more than gear. Half of what ends up in print is something a volunteer said while stacking chairs, once they stopped treating us as visitors and started treating us as company.
Writing for the reader who comes later
Back at the desk, the draft has one job: to remain useful after the event has passed. That means we describe the place and the habit rather than the single night. If a festival changes its lineup each year, we write about how the programming is chosen. If a theatre has a particular way of seating its audience, we explain it, so a reader planning a visit knows what to expect.
We avoid superlatives. Words like biggest or unmissable tell a reader nothing they can check. Instead we give small, concrete details: where the line forms, which entrance has the ramp, how long the interval lasts. Older readers in particular tell us these details are what make an outing feel manageable rather than risky.
- Prefer the lasting habit to the one-off lineup
- Give practical detail: entrances, seating, timing
- Cut any adjective that cannot be checked
Checking, correcting and saying what we do not know
Before publication every factual claim is read back against a note or a source. Dates, spellings, venue names and the order of events are checked by a second person, usually Daniel Tremblay, who has spent years backstage and notices what an outsider misses, such as a stage door that is not the public door.
When we cannot confirm something, we leave it out or say that it is unconfirmed. We do not invent quotations, and we do not paraphrase a conversation so that it sounds stronger than it was. If a reader later writes to point out a mistake, we correct the article and note the change at the foot of the page. A small magazine has only its reputation for care, and we would rather be slow and right.
What we leave for the reader to choose
We do not tell anyone which event to attend. Our task is to lay out what a gathering is, who makes it and what an ordinary visit looks like, then step back. A reader in a small town may prefer a quiet library reading to a large festival, and neither is lesser.
This restraint is deliberate. It keeps the journal from sounding like an advertisement, and it respects the reader's own judgment. When a story is finished well, a person closes the page knowing something true about a place and feeling free to go or stay home. That is the quiet standard we hold the Arts & Events desk to, week after week.
Covering festivals, film and music is slower than it looks. It means early arrivals, honest phone calls, careful checking and a willingness to cut a clever line that cannot be proved. The reward is a story that still reads well when the lanterns are packed away and the hall is empty. If you have a local gathering we should understand better, write to the editors through the contact page.