Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People

by The Cosmic Shambles Network in London, England, United Kingdom

We did it
On 21st December 2020 we successfully raised £25,311 with 894 supporters in 74 days

The iconic Nine Lessons & Carols for Curious People & Compendium are staging a 24 hour online edition for charity in this pandemic hit 2020

by The Cosmic Shambles Network in London, England, United Kingdom

 New stretch target

Every penny above costs will be donated to the charities Mind: For Better Mental Health, Doctors Without Borders, Turn2Us and the Kings Place Music Foundation.


The show is now available on Catch Up.

Visit cosmicshambles.com/ninelessons for links to each hour as they are uploaded.

What is Nine Lessons?

Created over 15 years ago by Robin Ince, Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People is the original and acclaimed science/comedy/music variety night. Each December, along with Robin and Brian Cox's Christmas Compendium of Reason at the Hammersmith Apollo, the world's best scientists, comedians, musicians, poets and more come together for a celebration of human endeavour and creativity and to raise a whole lot of money for some brilliant charities. It's the Royal Variety Performance meets the Christmas Lectures, Robin once described it as.

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How's it different this year?

With these live events having to be cancelled for 2020 we decided to do them all anyway, in a row, live for 24+ hours, broadcast online, entirely free to watch, from our London home of Kings Place. As always there'll be an amazing line up of guests including Brian Cox, Helen Czerski, Chris Hadfield, Helen Sharman, Sharon D Clarke, Josie Long, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Chris Jackson, Jim Al-Khalili and loads more with Robin hosting for the entire 24 hours. 

And, of course, we'll be raising money for our chosen charities. For 2020 these are Mind, Turn2Us, Doctors Without Borders and the Kings Place Music Foundation. All profits from this huge event will go to them.

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What's this Crowdfunder for then?

Each year all these shows alone sell thousands and thousands of tickets. That means we're able to raise a whole bunch of money for our chosen charities each year. With so very few tickets able to be sold for 2020, we don't want the charities to miss out especially in a year that's been harder than most. So given all 24+ hours will be free to stream from home, why not buy a 'ticket' here so we're still able to help out some places doing incredible work in a difficult time?

Also ticket sales mean we're able to cover the costs it takes for us to put these shows on each and every year in the first instance. Costs that include the lighting techs, AV operators, sound engineers and front of house staff. People who have seen a year with basically no income themselves. 

The Cosmic Shambles Network itself, (who produces Nine Lessons each year, and co-produces Compendium with our friends at Phil McIntyre Entertainments), receives no funding other than that from the support of our Patreon subscribers. We gladly produce these particular shows each year without taking any fee at all for ourselves with everything else going to charity. Now, this is usually not a problem as we've had a year’s worth of shows and tours behind us by the time we hit December. But 2020 is a little different. This year we have done a grand total of 2 live shows, back in January, and have had to cancel well over a 100. 

So if you want to help out the Shambles team as well as our chosen charities for this year, you can do that right here. And get yourself a few rewards for doing so as well. And then, once we've covered all the actual costs, everything else will go to the charities. So it's very much a win-win. 

We've produced 100s of hours of livestreams and podcasts this year, and almost all of those have gone out for free (as will this 24 hour show) tallying millions of views and downloads all without any funding other than that from our incredible and wonderful Patreon supporters. So if you have a spare quid, or perhaps you’d like to spend what you would’ve normally on a ticket, that will help pay for our server costs, the team and copious amounts of caffeine required for this 24 hour show. So, if you can, we'd sure be grateful. And remember, what's left over goes straight towards helping some incredible charities.

For a full and constantly updating list of guest announcements and more visit cosmicshambles.com/ninelessons

You can also sign up for our Patreon account if you'd like to at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

Rewards

This project offers rewards in return for your donation. Please select a reward below.

£5 or more

£5 Credit

Your name in the show credits on the Cosmic Shambles Network website as a valued supporter.

£10 or more

154 of 400 claimed

£10 Badge Supporter

We'll send you an exclusive Nine Lessons and Carols for Socially Distanced People 2020 badge plus your name in the show credits on the Cosmic Shambles Network website as a valued supporter. These won't be available anywhere else but this Crowdfunder.

£25 or more

268 of 400 claimed

£25 Sticker Supporter

£25 is the price of a ticket to the live show. So buy a 'ticket' and we'll send you an exclusive pack of collector's edition Nine Lessons and Carols for Socially Distanced People stickers, plus the badge and credit as above. One of these stickers will in fact be a ticket, your ticket, for the show. Stick it on your laptop! Your door! Your car! Wherever. They're stickers. These won't be available anywhere else but this Crowdfunder

£100 or more

42 of 50 claimed

£100 Poster & Shout Out

You'll get the exclusive sticker pack and badge plus you'll get a very limited edition Nine Lessons poster, personally dedicated to you and signed by Robin Ince PLUS we'll give you a shout out as an absolute amazing supporter during the live broadcast. These rewards will only be available on this Crowdfunder.

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