Over five days, the festival offers a mix of panel discussions, book launches, workshops, poetry readings and performances.
The $99 annual membership to the Chicagoan includes the biannual print product (26 stories per issue) and some extra perks, such as access to exclusive stories on the Chicagoan website; a monthly tablet-only story; and public events that are a mix of readings, panel discussions and cocktail parties.
One long wall is clad from floor to ceiling with richly hued, recycled-leather-wrapped panels, while the opposite wall is a mix of stainless steel panels and a nearly full-length closet system set behind blackened aluminum and textured-glass bifold doors and transoms.
Below, projected on the wall, is a digitised video animation of elegant korai statues (pictured above).The frieze, a mix of honey-coloured marble panels and glaring white plaster casts of pieces in the BM, shows a procession of worshippers carrying offerings to Athena, the temple goddess.
Inside the urban hub we set up shop with an engaging mix of interactive installations, stimulating panels and workshops, and Saturday night's all-star music line-up.
Sundance said the second round would include a similar mix of films, concerts and panel discussions; the inaugural Sundance London featured 27 films (all culled from the lineup at its primary festival in Utah) and 17 concerts.
The control panels, the mix of polygons and hand-drawn backgrounds, the scary, lonely air and threatening atmosphere… right up my alley.
Two exceptions were Doug Liman's Go (featuring Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley and Scott Wolf), which had fun with the LA warehouse party scene, and Blade, whose great bloody opening (to the Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix of New Order's Confusion, trackspotters) was the last word in clubbing exclusivity.
(For what it's worth, it's actually The Pump Panel Reconstruction mix of New Order's "Confusion").
The festival includes a mix of musicians, composers, scholars and academic panels.
