FAQs:

We put on a variety of events throughout the year, including our monthly showcases at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh, our twice-monthly open mics at the Canons’ Gait in Edinburgh, and our slams with festivals and venues across Scotland and the UK. We also frequently produce shows for special events and in partnership with other organisations and projects. For details about our live events, please check out the LIVE page, and subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest updates.

The Loud Poets Slam Series is the largest slam tournament in the UK with the highest prize (£3,000). For our third annual series in 2024-25, we’re partnering with festivals and venues across the Scotland and England. This Series features 10 regional heats, with the winner of each heat being awarded £200 and qualifying for our Grand Slam Final in Edinburgh in August 2025. To learn more about the Slam Series and how to sign up and book tickets, please visit our SLAM page.

Our open mics take place on the second and last Mondays of the month at the Canons’ Gait in Edinburgh. To make our open mic as accessible as possible, we offer both advance and on-the-door signups. You can sign up in advance using this Google Form. We will email you one week before the event to let you know if you have a guaranteed performance spot. We always leave two spots open for sign-ups on the door, and these spots will be filled by random draw at the event. To sign up on the door, when you arrive at the event please speak to one of the members of the Loud Poets team and let them know you’d like to perform.

Welcome! Spoken word is a great art form with a welcoming community. Our top advice to people getting started is to watch as much poetry as you can to learn about the diverse styles and subjects out there. Check out live events near you and videos of spoken word on YouTube. As you start writing your own work, find your local open mic to test out your material and get involved with your local community of fellow writers and performers. Above all, trust your own voice and develop the confidence to share your unique perspective.

Thank you so much for your interest in our events! There are a lot of factors that go into booking our shows, and we book fairly far in advance, but we always love to hear from poets that are keen to perform with us. To express your interest, please email us at hello@iamloud.co telling us about your work. Please include links to videos of you performing your poetry live; as we’re a spoken word poetry organisation, we need to see not only the text of your poetry but how you perform it to gauge whether you’d be a good fit for our events. Thank you!

Yes! Our team has extensive experience leading creative writing and performance workshops for a range of ages and experience levels. We’ve worked with schools, organisations, and projects across Scotland, the UK, and Europe for over ten years facilitating spoken word education and development programming. We also offer regular workshops, feedback sessions, and support through our online Loud Poets Writing Club community, and we host digital workshops for free on our YouTube channel. To learn more about our educational programming, check out the WORKSHOPS page.

Yes! We are available for event bookings and happy to work with you to tailor our performances and the event format to your interests and needs. We have performed bespoke Loud Poets shows for organisations, schools, and projects across the UK and Europe for over ten years. Our team of Directors is available to book, and if needed we are happy to recommend additional poets from our wide community of artists. To get in touch about a booking, please email us at hello@iamloud.co. Thank you!

Yes! Our team of Directors has extensive experience writing and performing to commission, as well as acting and voiceover work. If you’re looking for a specific style/voice that we may not have in our team, we’d also be happy to connect you with another poet from our wide community of artists. To enquire about commissions, please email us at hello@iamloud.co. Thank you!

Yes! We have extensive filming, recording, and digital production experience and regularly partner with events and festivals across the UK to deliver their digital programming. We offer various packages for organisations and individuals seeking event filming, podcast production, and other digital services. Get in touch about your project by emailing us at hello@iamloud.co. Thank you!

You can purchase copies of our anthology, Loud Poets Volume I, through our Etsy store. To get those snazzy Loud Poets T-shirts and other apparel and accessories, check out our Redbubble store, where you can order merch in your size directly to your home. We also sell our books and the merch of the acts performing with us at our live events.

You bet we do! We have over 700 videos on our YouTube channel, including poetry performances at our live events, filmpoems, podcasts, workshops, and more. Check out our channel here, and don’t forget to Like, Subscribe, and consider joining as a member to help us spread spoken word poetry to more people.

Spoken word poetry often tackles adult themes using adult language, so many of our events have age guidelines. Our Loud Poets showcases at the Scottish Storytelling Centre welcome ages 14+ and babes in arms. Our open mic is open to performers and audiences of all ages, but because it takes place in a pub anyone under the age of 18 can only be present until 9pm due to licensing laws. Because some of the heats of our Slam Series take place in pubs, poets must be over the age of 18 to compete; for queries about any audience age restrictions at these events please contact us directly at hello@iamloud.co.

Although our public events have age guidelines, spoken word poetry is also a wonderful art form for introducing children and young people to literacy and building confidence, and we frequently run workshops for younger ages. You can also find a playlist of spoken word poems for younger ears on our YouTube channel here.

Although most of our live events take place in the UK, we film our showcases, slams, and many other events so they’re accessible to poetry fans wherever you’re based. You can watch videos from these events for free on our YouTube channel, or sign up to our YouTube membership for just £5/month to watch all of our full shows (including over 50 full shows in our archives)! If you’re a poet, or interested in starting your poetry journey, you can sign up to our Patreon Community Tier to join our Loud Poets Writing Club. This group takes place entirely online, using a Discord server and Zoom for our workshops and feedback sessions, so we welcome members based anywhere in the world.

Thanks so much for wanting to support us! There are lots of ways to do it.

First, come to a show! You can book tickets for all of our live events - including showcases, slams, workshops, and more - via the LIVE page. Second, spreading the word is always really appreciated - tell a friend you enjoyed a show, talk about it on social media, or leave a review of us on our Facebook page. Online, liking our YouTube videos and subscribing to our channel makes a big difference! Third, if you want to go a step further, we have a Patreon page with different tiers where you can support us on a monthly basis. It features lots of great perks, including early access to videos, exclusive content like full shows, and our Community Tier with our Writing Club featuring monthly workshops, feedback, and support.

If you represent a business or charitable organisation interested in sponsoring our work or exploring a partnership, we’d love to hear from you! Please get in touch by emailing hello@iamloud.co.

However you support us, thank you so much!