Anniversary Party

There was some debate in the Stan’s Cafe office as to whether it counted as hubris to have a 25th Anniversary Party. The deal we came to was that we would throw a party but only if we had a new show at its heart and that this show would be inspired by the tension between celebrating your own modest endurance in the context of world events. The other condition was that we would do the party properly, pull out all the stops and make it an evening to remember.

So our friends at mac agreed to let us take over the venue for a night. We made a new show, Time Critical, for the main theatre. We screened the film of Twilightofthefreakingods in the cinema. An installation with projections, slides and monitors filled the cafe walls. Having chosen a day between exhibitions we were able to place active installation pieces from our archive in the upper gallery and filled the lower gallery with objects from our history. Around the public spaces food stations were themed around shows from our back-catalogue. We commissioned a magnificent cake. We made speeches thanking people, talking a little of what is to come, launched Scheming Friends (our individual giving initiative) and then Graeme stormed the stage to smash up the magnificent cake with a cricket bat; his message was clear Stan’s Cafe isn’t about the comfort of cake – Stan’s Cafe is dead, long live Stan’s Cafe.

Tour Dates

• 13 November, 2016
  MAC, Birmingham