END OF A VIBE-TASTIC ERA! After over 15 years of providing creative opportunities to young people in Barry and the Vale of Glamorgan, Vibe Experience will be closing its doors feeling pretty pleased with itself for the fantastic work it has managed to carry out in its area. There has been a wealth of entertainment provided at its Vibe Events, music and DJ workshops, SPLASH summer programmes and da
nce celebrations to name a few. Based in AREA 41 Holton Road Barry, Vibe went from strength to strength organising large scale events at the Memorial Hall every month with some of its young performers on stage and often on the same nights as other invited bigger acts including NDUBZ and Lethal Bizzle. These were the ultimate TEEN Parties for 12 to 17 year olds, extremely popular, attended by over 800 young people and staffed by fully trained youth workers and Vibe event staff. In 2006 Vibe were awarded monies from the European Regional Development Fund which enabled them expand the team and provide film, music and information technology workshops to young people to young people living in less advantaged wards. It also enabled the employment of a Youth Inclusion Officer and a Finance and Admin Worker. Much of Vibe’s work in the early days was geared towards diverting antisocial behaviour from young people, relying heavily on public funding to run projects they worked closely with the police in identifying high risk areas where young people may be susceptible to antisocial behaviour. Vibe worked with these young people in encouraging creativity and harnessing talent through the outlet of multimedia, film making, music production and IT skills. Vibe’s biggest night of the year would be to organise an event for Halloween as this was notoriously an evening with increased antisocial behaviour from young people and were run in partnership with South Wales Police and funded by the Vale of Glamorgan Safer Vale Partnership. In 2006 the event featured chart topping group FUN*DMENTAL 03 and top DJ Richie Vibe Vee from Radio 1 bbc xtra and 2008 featured Beatbox Fozzy an hot name on the South Wales hip hop scene.
