Last weekend Chorlton kicked up its heels with the one-day Bad Shoes Festival, a totally free event running over two venues. Electrik hosted a literature stage from midday while Dulcimer was all about music from the early evening onwards.

Bad Shoes was the brainchild of Nici West, Dan Carpenter and Joe Daly of new writing collective and monthly spoken word night Bad Language, and Kate Vanhinsbergh and Red Newsom of Shoestring magazine. Their aim was to create an exciting, interactive arts festival bringing together all ages and lovers of all art forms.

Says Dan of Bad Language: “We were looking to expand on what we do and put on something big to get more people in the North West aware of the amazing talent we have right here in the city. The event seemed to snowball, with loads of people wanting to get involved. We were very impressed with how it all went and it was great to see how many people responded so well to poetry and literature on a Sunday afternoon!"

The literature stage kicked off with Anna Percy’s Stirred Poetry and a showcase of Beat-inspired work. This was followed by the FlashTag Writers, a five-strong group (Sarah-Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Tom Mason, Dave Hartley and Benjamin Judge) who produce flash fiction and run literary events, and who are launching their new anthology, Quickies: Short Stories For Adults, this Wednesday as part of Didsbury Arts Festival. More short stories came courtesy Bad Language regular Nija Dalal and Chorlton-based author Sian Cummins, while Emily Morris read extracts from her forthcoming first novel, sparked by her award-winning blog My Shitty Twenties.

The Bad Language trio themselves provided a mixture of prose and poetry then, during the late afternoon, there was more contemporary poetry from, among others, Rod Tame, Keiron King and The Men Pomes’ Gerry Potter. The evening brought new work by Socrates Adams, whose debut novel Everything’s Fine will be launched at October’s Manchester Literature Festival, and Chris Killen (pictured), author of The Bird Room. The headline slot was manned by Nicholas Royle, Didsbury-based novelist, short story writer and boss of Nightjar Press.

A busy and buzzing Dulcimer took the festival into the evening, hosting eight music sets. As well as some folky solo artists in the bar, there were bands in the upstairs room. "Music wise,” says Dan, “Matthew Whitaker was stunning, probably my personal highlight, and Lost Rites put on a fantastic show.”

Extending the festival’s remit, visual artists and craft makers were also on hand with their wares and exhibitions, along with special in situ projects, such as the fabric lamppost outside Dulcimer by Kerry Howarth, who famously (round those parts) wrapped trees in yarn as part of May’s Chorlton Arts Festival.

So will there be a re-run? "We really enjoyed putting it on, and the reaction has been very good, so keep all eyes on the festival blog and we’ll see what happens!”