Venue-hunting for Bees in a Tin conference

I’ve spent the Summer working on a residency hosted by The Public in West Bromwich where I’ve been designing and delivering a programme of events related to maker culture and DIY technology.

Different events have been aimed at different audiences. You can see the results at http://manyandvaried.org.uk.

One last event remains: Bee in a Tin. Nominally aimed at artists, but you can read that as something like “people dedicating sustained effort to interesting projects”. We’re all very excited about this, but there’s one catch. The Public as we know it is being shut down by Sandwell Council at the end of next month.

This means many things, amongst which is the need for me to find an alternative venue for the conference.

Please can you help me compile a shortlist of possibilities?

Here’s what I’m after:

• Somewhere that can accommodate around 50 people doing a range of presentations, workshops and more active playtesting (likely to involve going outside).
• Preferably ‘slightly scruffy’ (i.e. people aren’t afraid to colonise the space and inhabit corners for making stuff etc.
• Wi-Fi
• Plentiful supplies of electrons
• Heating (we’re aiming for a February/March date)
• Low-ish hire rates (my budget was based on free venue hire at The Public!)
• Probably restricted to either Birmingham-ish or Bristol for geographical reasons…

I can be pretty flexible, but the kind of thing I have in mind is the 2011 GLI.TC/H Festival which hit a sweet spot with size and malleability of space. (There are some photos here, but I’m not sure how much of a sense of the space they convey.) Basically the old VIVID space would have been ideal.

What can you suggest as alternative?