Alison Brinkworth
Alison Brinkworth is a freelance journalist who covers music within the wider cultural and lifestyle scene, using exhibitions, performances and city-centre events to show how music connects to everyday life. Her coverage leans toward accessible, on-the-ground stories about what is happening now, framed through familiar artists, venues and local attractions. She writes with a service focus, giving readers clear reasons to attend and enough practical detail to act on her recommendations.
Music exhibitions and local icons
Her music coverage often centres on exhibitions and attractions built around well-known performers, using their stories to draw audiences into broader cultural offerings. In her piece on the Ozzy Osbourne: Working Class Hero exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, she highlights twin shows honouring Black Sabbath and a photography display in Victoria Square, treating the band’s legacy as part of the city’s contemporary cultural fabric. Dates, locations and the nature of each installation sit alongside references to the artists themselves, so the practical information never stands apart from the musical heritage it celebrates. That approach positions music not just as sound, but as a gateway into place, history and community experience.
Live performance, theatre and events
Beyond exhibitions, Brinkworth’s portfolio spans theatre reviews, live events and city attractions, giving her music pieces a performance-led slant. Professional profiles describe her specialisms as theatre reviews and lifestyle content focused on an urban area with a strong arts scene, indicating that stage, screen and venue-based stories are a regular part of her work. She tends to frame events through what audiences will see and feel, rather than through industry news or behind-the-scenes business angles, keeping the emphasis on the experience itself.
That performance focus means music appears frequently in the context of shows, festivals and cross-arts programming rather than in standalone album or single reviews.
Lifestyle, travel and human-interest angles
Brinkworth brings a lifestyle and travel sensibility to her coverage, which shapes how she writes about music and culture. Her professional background includes lifestyle and human-interest features, travel pieces and product coverage for a mix of national and regional outlets, magazines and websites.
That experience shows in the way she ties cultural events to broader themes such as leisure, city life and local identity, making the story about how people spend their time as much as about the art itself.
Human-interest interviewing is a core part of her skill set, and it feeds into profiles and features that use personal stories to give colour to cultural coverage. This blend of lifestyle, travel and music makes her work suited to narratives that connect artists, venues or campaigns with everyday routines and choices.
Experience and working style
Brinkworth has over 25 years of experience as a writer across print, digital platforms, social media and internal communications, with a portfolio that spans newspapers, magazines and online outlets. She works as a freelance journalist and writer, contributing to national and regional publications as well as city-focused platforms such as Central BID Birmingham and event-driven sites like WeekendNotes. Her articles are structured around clear, factual description of what an event offers, supported by specific details such as dates, locations and organisers, which makes her copy straightforward to reuse in listings or guides. She writes in plain, direct language with an emphasis on clarity and accessibility, avoiding opinion-heavy commentary in favour of practical information and concise scene-setting. Music, theatre and lifestyle subjects sit alongside each other in her work, giving her a broad cultural brief but a consistent, audience-facing style.
4 more music journalists.
Abigail Kellett
Abigail Kellett is a news reporter at the Halifax Courier who stands out for visually led coverage that shows how culture, nightlife and local life play out on the ground. She documents gigs, festivals and major live shows at venues such as The Piece Hall through curated photo sets that capture atmosphere, crowd and setting as much as performers, and she uses extensive image galleries to tap reader nostalgia for nights out in Halifax town centre. Her beat spans arts, entertainment, going out, heritage, books and literary events, along with community life, people stories, local challenges, milestones, transport, regeneration, lifestyle and food. She reports through photographs, checklist-style features, reader-driven lists and roundups of most-read stories, turning announcements, programmes, author events, festivals, shop lists and everyday characters into stories about place, shared memory and how people spend their time.
Adam Lyon
Adam Lyon is a digital audience and content editor whose news beat sits at the intersection of Ayrshire’s cultural life, business environment and public affairs. He works for the Ayr Advertiser and as Digital Audience & Content Editor for Newsquest in the west of Scotland across multiple weekly titles. He covers Ayrshire news with a strong thread of music and local culture alongside business, courts and public affairs. He reports on music when it has a clear community or national hook, treating songs as news events rather than reviews. His business work explains how local firms and retail policy shape town centres. His court coverage uses round-ups of sheriff court cases to show patterns and outcomes. He also fronts video previews and is active in a football supporters trust community.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose work links big-name gigs, new venues and cultural flashpoints to everyday fan culture and inclusion. He covers music, nightlife and the wider cultural scene for the Manchester Evening News, focusing on how concerts, openings and immersive events land with real people and communities. His beat spans live music, arenas and stadiums, new restaurant and bar openings, food reviews, exhibitions, street art and nightlife infrastructure, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ audiences and neighbourhoods. He reports on venue ambitions and problems, cultural institutions and equality issues, and franchise-led experiences, using straightforward, on-the-ground reporting and clear description. Drawing on a background in community reporting, he looks for underrepresented perspectives and uses social media, analytics and local sourcing to find stories where culture, identity and place meet.
Alex Rigotti
Alex Rigotti is a freelance music and culture editor and journalist who joins fast-turnaround music news with detailed reporting on artists, fandom and politics. They report breaking stories and live music updates for NME and Paste Magazine, covering pop, rock, club music, underground scenes and cultural debates around art and identity. Their live-music beat includes setlists, tours, festival appearances, cancellations, ticketing, venues and onstage collaborations. They previously served as a contributing editor for NME’s Radar section, supporting coverage of emerging artists and new scenes. Rigotti also writes features on rap lyrics and criminalisation, Eurovision and politics, queer feminist bodybuilding, astrotherapy and contemporary art. Their reporting is direct and specific, using clear quotes, concrete details and artists’ own words to explain what happened and how music fits into wider cultural and industry trends.