Who is Balloon?

Balloon is novelist and playwright, Matthew David Scott; and music promoter and record label boss, Matt Jarrett.

What is Balloon?

Balloon is a literature and music event based, currently, in Cardiff.  Having been involved in the music and literature scenes in Cardiff for some years now, it became clear to us that the regular crowd that came out in support of local musicians didn’t come out in support of local writers, despite many having a self-professed love of literature and Cardiff having a great deal of excellent literature events already running.  With Balloon, we want to coax this audience into the fold by putting on events usually reserved for music venues and having musicians and DJs play at the same events as our readers.  We endeavour to make sure that each of our events showcases at least one Welsh-based writer so that this loyal, gig-going crowd has a chance to get behind local literature talent in the same fashion they have the local music scene and, hopefully, branch out to attending other literature events as well. Mostly we want to keep our events varied and fun.

Where is Balloon?

Although based in Cardiff, Balloon isn’t currently tied to one particular venue and, indeed, doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to one particular city.  In this our first year there have already been requests for us to take Balloon to the Green Man Festival and have taken part in a Question & Answer Session at the Hay Literary Festival, as well as an upcoming ‘exchange program’ event with Sheffield’s ‘Word Life’ night, at Theatre In The Mill, Bradford.  We hope to develop more links with other literature events around the UK in order to pool resources and develop a network of like-minded literature promoters.  Equally, our Cardiff events themselves are very flexible in terms of where they take place.  We like to really think about the type of acts we have on and then work out the best venue to present these acts.  Moving from venue to venue also means we are bumping into more and more new audience members everywhere we go.

This is what The Joy Collective said about us before our Kong show. We liked it.

‘There will be tears, or other bodily fluids. An emotional night ahead, not only to celebrate the union of Matts Jarrett and Scott, but to also binge on twisted noise, farewell sets and dark literary undercurrents. Hosts Balloon you should know as drunks firstly, but primarily as promoters whose nights mix live music with spoken word to great effect; this event is them at their grotesquely terrifying best. It’s going to be brilliant.’

We are currently receiving financial support from Academi which we are very grateful for.