Crain's Business

It is said that flattery will get you a long way. Imitation is supposedly the greatest form of flattery, but on reading this article today, I’m not so sure. Follow that link and you will discover two things – firstly, that it takes you to Crain’s Manchester Business, a respected local business news portal, and, secondly, that you have to pay to read content on there. For the purposes of this blog, you are going to have to take my word that the article in question relates to the ongoing saga of Stadium Point, the big music venue I talked about on here the other week and also – importantly for the point I am about to make – in this article on our main site.

I’m going to cut to the proverbial chase – there are certain elements in the Crain’s article that have been taken directly from my own carefully crafted news piece. My words, over which I laboured for many minutes and connected with great thought and care into sentences and even paragraphs, have been copied. Let’s take a look; this is the opening paragraph from my original article, published on 12 January 2010:

“An application has been submitted by the owners of Sankeys to transform an empty warehouse in Trafford Park into a huge club and live music venue. The site, which sits around three miles from the centre of Manchester, is in an industrial area surrounded by offices and with the Imperial War Museum across the road, just across the water from Salford Quays, The Lowry Centre and the new Media City.”

Crain’s article, published on 25 January 2010, starts thus:

“As you are aware an application has been submitted by the owners of Sankeys to transform an empty warehouse in Trafford Park into a huge club and live music venue. The site sits around three miles from the centre of Manchester, the area surrounded by offices, the Imperial War Museum and just across the water from Salford Quays, The Lowry Centre and the new Media City.”

Note to Crain’s – sticking ‘As you are aware’ at the beginning doesn’t make it any less obvious. Let’s move on. My article continues:

“The new venue, provisionally called ‘Stadium Point’, is being designed to rival the likes of the MEN Arena and The Apollo, focussing on the ‘stand up and dance’ crowd, rather than the ‘sit down and tap feet’ crowd.”

I was quite pleased with that – the ‘stand up and dance crowd’ phrase was in the Stadium Point brochure but I coined the ‘sit down and tap feet crowd’ counter – clever, aren’t I? Crain’s obviously think so – their article continued:

“The venue, Stadium Point, is being designed to rival the likes of the MEN Arena and The Apollo, focussing on the “stand up and dance” crowd, rather than the “sit down and tap feet” crowd.”

Hmm...I’m not feeling this now, Crain’s. I mean, you can have the dreary ‘this is what it is and where it is’ sentences, they’re easy (although why you need to nick them I’m not sure) but stealing the good stuff, that’s just not on. Here’s me again:

“In a proposal document released by the developers for a meeting with local residents, the team behind the project, headed by Dave Vincent, owner of Sankeys, state that, “Our market is not old bands like Elton John, Paul McCartney etc. It is more Elbow, Madonna, Eminem, Ian Brown, Dizzy Rascal, Calvin Harris, Moby, Basement Jaxx etc.” They claim that their capacity to be flexible with their floor plan, able to accommodate shows for between 3,500 to 16,000 punters, will set them apart from the competition. Their shows will attract a public who “want to dance (a [sic] indoor festival vibe), instead of being seated, and artistes want to perform in a more edgy venue.”

And Crain’s:

"In a proposal document the team behind the project, headed by Dave Vincent, owner of Sankeys, state that: “Our market is not old bands like Elton John, Paul McCartney etc. It is more Elbow, Madonna, Eminem, Ian Brown, Dizzy Rascal, Calvin Harris, Moby, Basement Jaxx etc.” They claim that their capacity to be flexible with their floor plan, able to accommodate shows for between 3,500 to 16,000 punters, will set them apart from the competition. Their shows will attract a public who want to dance, instead of being seated, and artistes want to perform in a more edgy venue.”

Do we all get the point now? Good. Let’s just recap: Crain’s are charging people to read words that I have written. Conclusion: Crain’s think I am a better writer and journalist than the people they pay to write and do journalist stuff.

If you want me to write for you, Crain’s, all you have to do is ask, and I will politely decline. Otherwise, stop nicking our articles. Thank you.

Social United

More from our favourite source of all things slightly weird this week as we return to the murky world of footballers. Not just any old footballers, though, for these are Manchester United footballers! The veritable cream of the crop, supposedly, depending on which part of the city you live in (East Manchester – City, East London – United. Did I just make a football joke? I think I did – hooray!).

Unfortunately not the actions of footballers themselves this time, as has been the topic of my blog-based meanderings previously, rather the actions of their club, which are, in turn, designed to minimise the players’ actions. Confused? Me too, I got into that sentence without really visualising the end of it. Let’s put it a little simpler – Manchester United have banned all of their players from using social networking sites. There, that’s better.

So, why would Manchester United ban their players from using Twitter (or Facebook/Bebo/any other you can think of)? Surely there’s no harm in us learning what Wayne Rooney had for breakfast, is there? Or what Ryan Giggs watches on the TV? Well apparently there is. The club seem a little nervous that the general population might have a little too much insight into their players’ lives and have cancelled all accounts that did exist and banned the players from opening any others. Have a look at what Ryan Giggs’ Facebook page looks like now:

Ah, look at his confused face. ‘Where’s me Facebook gone, Mr Ferguson?’

I think the point of this, rather than protecting the public from what Wayne Rooney might be able to fit into 140 characters, is, well, stopping whatever Wayne Rooney might be able to fit into 140 characters becoming public. Damage limitation, some might call it. I’d go for ‘good media relations’. I can’t help being left with the feeling that we’re missing out on something though.

On Point

The big news this week in clubland is Stadium Point, a warehouse in Trafford Park that the people behind Sankeys hope to turn into a music venue. We covered all the proper stuff about it in this article, so go have a read if you feel inclined. That of course means that I am free to talk of it as I wish in this here blog but, to be fair, I don’t have that much to say. I’ve had a look at the warehouse – and that’s all it is at the moment, a big empty box of a building – and it’s massive. I mean, really big – like aircraft hanger sized, able to contain a whole village sized. But that’s not really much news – big building in Manchester industrial estate.

We did manage to get a look at the developers proposal for the building, however, which included some site plans and notes on renovations. It will mainly be used for live gigs, apparently, and this is their plan for the layout:

Anyone else notice the obvious (deliberate?) mistake? I don’t wish to be picky but might some toilets be an idea, somewhere?

Hello 2010

So, we made it through to 2010. It’s not that much of a surprise really – it wasn’t hard. Although, saying that, it’s getting harder because…wait for it…yes, I’m going to talk about the weather. Well, how could one not? It is quite impressive. This is what my garden looked like this morning:


You’ve all seen snow before though, I would imagine, so a picture of my garden covered in it probably isn’t that interesting. What has been interesting has been Manchester Twitterati’s (I hate that expression) response to the snow. A quick glance at my feed (yes, I have a feed – I’m a bit like a bird but more tech savvy) reveals a constant update of conditions and news from the city – pretty useful seeing as I’m stuck at home in Stockport and my finger is at full stretch trying to regain contact with the freezing city pulse.

@technicalfault has, as ever, provided entertaining and informative city-centric updates – even with a photo of men shovelling snow. @canalstmancs are similarly doing a sterling job of keeping up to date with who’s open and who’s frozen in the village and many others have embraced the power of Twitter to keep the information flowing - @CornerhouseMcr, @manairport, @ManCityCouncil, @visit_mcr to name a few. Tweet of the day goes to @GMPTE, however, who provided this little insight, possibly from a disgruntled employee:

Nice. It’s still snowing here, by the way.



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