I found myself at a Piece Hall events meeting the other night. It was a mistake - I shouldn't have been there, but anyway...
My not-very-well-received suggestion was that we should resurrect the old Halifax Sings from the 19th century. You can find a little information about these on Malcolm Bull's excellent Calderdale Companion site, but basically all the Sunday Schools in the area got together and sang in the Piece Hall at five year intervals over a period of about forty years. The few pictures available show the place heaving with people.
I suppose the big Sunday School era might be over, but people love to sing and if we got a few school choirs involved there'd be automatic interest and attendance from the proud mums and dads. If we got the churches involved there'd be the congregations. (In fact, why don't the churches organise something like this?) If we involved other faiths there'd be an inter-faith element. If we got a brass band or two involved that'd be even better...
It'd be brilliant to see the place full of people singing, even just as a one-off. Not in this case to make money or increase trade, but just to make people happy. There's nothing like a bit of communal singing to make you feel good.
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