Before The Panel comes The Fake Panel. It’s vital. The pitch, the practise. It’s not easy stuffing 12 weeks of ideas, into 7 minutes, making it coherent, cutting to the chase, convincing a panel of professionals and politicians that your idea is worth investing in. The Fake Panel is a lifeline. A warm up round, and not one without nerves and big names. Sitting on the Fake Panel this year was Andre Piza from People’s Palace Projects, Richard Duffy and David Jubb, Senior Producer and Artistic Director of BAC respectively, and Tobi Kyeremateng founder of producer of Rock The Mic.

From the start of the day the Agents were showing what this meant to them. Badr & David had arrived half an hour early to Providence, and had prepared a hilarious and theatrical intro to their presentation. They still got a drilling as the fake panel approached though! ‘Make sure you talk about networks’, ‘This section loses focus, keep it to two sentences’ ‘Make bulletpoints.’

Everyone was on it.

Abdi started with prompt cards. 30 minutes later he didn’t need them any more.

Amaya and Daisy were in another world, mapping out the whole presentation from scratch, teasing out the details, bringing to the foreground the personal story, why it was so important to her.

Keron and Mohamed had digital presentations to accompany them and were just adding finishing touches.

By the time we hit BAC, where the fake panel were waiting, excitement was high.

Off they went, 1 by 1…and somehow they all came back with smiles! It seems the fake panel were blown away by the originality of their ideas…even if they did have to ask some clarifying questions. They didn’t have to choose 3 people though. The Panel themselves wouldn’t be able to rest so easily…Only 3 projects can get funding for cycle 2.