It’ll soon be back to school and back to uni, hope you enjoyed Easter while it lasted. But this weekend, you’ve got Judgement Day, RawFfest and a host of other awesome stuff to look forward to.

Don’t worry- another long weekend is just around the corner. Until then, here’s this week’s Cheap Things to do guide. To start, we’ve picked a number of awesome events from the RawFfest programme that we can’t wait to get stuck into. Not heard of RawFfest yet? It’s the Welsh Youth Arts Festival at the Wales Millennium Centre. Read more about it from the young people organising it. Best of all it really is cheap to get in, with a £20 ticket covering from Thursday til Sunday. You can see the full programme here.

If you don’t want to go to RawFfest (why tho?), don’t worry: we’ve got plenty of other stuff for you to try.

Judgement Day 2013 Cardiff Blues banner from intothevalleys- on Flickr.

JUDGEMENT DAY – SATURDAY 27 APRIL

It really is the Big Game this Saturday as Judgement Day comes to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. JDVII will see the Ospreys of Swansea and Neath face down the Cardiff Blues, and the Dragons of Newport and Gwent take on the Scarlets representing Llanelli. It’s a great clash of east and west, and will be a much bigger event than the inter university Varsity a few weeks ago. Which means, watch out for traffic disruption. If you want to go it’s actually only £15-25 to get in, but if you’re not going take a look at the link anyway to find out about travel disruption.

THURSDAY 25 APRIL

Radio Platfform, being situated in the Millennium Centre, is going to be running shows, interviewing artists and generally welcoming friendly new faces into the situation throughout RawFfest. They’ll be hosting a silent disco in the evening too.

Whilst you’re there, pop into Hwb Bwb, which will be just outside Radio Platfform, for some work from North Welsh artists into mental health.

Outside of RawFfest, today is the last of the XR Cardiff Critical Mass rides you might have heard about, a loosely organised protest of people of all ages riding up and down an unspecified Cardiff road in a big noisy group. We have an explainer here: Who Are Extinction Rebellion? You can also check it out on Facebook.

One event which may appeal to Sprout writers is the Cardiff Bloggers April Social. They’ll be meeting at Sticky Fingers Street Food at 6pm. Check it out on Eventbrite and Facebook.

You might struggle, though, to choose between the bloggers and the meetup of the podcast club– also today at 6pm. Here’s the Facebook event. It’s at Rabble Studio, just round the corner from us on Bute Street. I’m afraid neither of our Strangetown hosts can attend- but maybe next time!

Finally (Thursdays, huh!), try some improv at Beelzebub’s in the city centre at 8pm. FB.

And if none of that appeals to you, try going down your local supermarket and playing a game of “who can buy the most reduced price easter eggs for the least amount of money?”

WMC, Photo by the legendary Liam Richards

FRIDAY 26 APRIL

RawFfest really gets going today:

• Radio Platfform will be providing some workshops to allow you to try your own radio demos. These run at various times throughout the day: 11am and 4pm.
• Try a new, audience driven form of Opera with Operasonic. Again, 11am or 4pm. See the results at 6:30pm. What a day!
• Try movie-making with the awesome It’s My Shout at 11 and 1.30pm.
• Wales Arts Review will be coaching young critics at 11am.
• The inspirational Jannat from Lucent Dreaming will be talking about Putting Yourself Out There through social media and more at 1:30pm.
• At 3pm settle down and watch Unplugged, a play about- you guessed it- smartphones!
• At 4:30pm, Fio Futures ask: what would happen if your citizenship was taken away from you?
• Queens of Art will see Cardiff’s own Ladies of Rage rapping and DJing at the Millennium Centre. Should be a great show. It’s on the Rawffest site but also on FB.

Phewwwww! Need a lie down after all that ready for day 2…

SATURDAY 27 APRIL

If you want to get out of the city for a bit, here’s a chance: the South Wales Urban Sketchers are making a trip to Castell Coch at 1pm to get the pens out and sketch those gorgeous towers. Might be a nice day for a bike ride up there perhaps, weather permitting? It’s on FB. Anyway, back to RawFfest…

RawFfest Day 2 involves some really inspiring performances and workshops:

• COMPETITIVE poetry (what on earth?) from 3pm.
• At 4pm, hear Jac Richards, a 22 year old who suffers from cerebral palsy, explain how he wrote a single using just his eye movements. You can even have a go yourself.
• At 11am make some zines with Lumin.
• At 12:30, try If The Shoe Fits, a play which explores what it’s like growing up as a rural teen.
• Edward Lee of Strangetown fame showcases one of his greatest passions at 1:30pm, when Having A Crack At Comics will be giving everyone a go at writing and drawing talking heads into sequential panels.
• Having done the writing, Osian Grifford covers comic illustration at 4.
• Oh lordy, this sounds great: film fighting and stunts workshop. Learn the basics of hand to hand combat and using weapons in filmed choreography at 1.30, 2 and 2.30pm.
• Roll for Remission at 1:30pm combines Dungeons and Dragons with battling cancer. No performance is the same.
• From 1.30 to 3 you can enjoy a guided tour of the Rawffest and Diffusion exhibition spaces spread out between the Millennium Centre and its neighbour, the Senedd.
• At 3pm, a topical play in the wake of the tragic murder of Derry journalist Lyra McKee: The Ceasefire Babies looks at the changing attitudes of people in the six counties.
• At 7pm, enjoy the animation Behind Closed Doors which explores the lives of young adult carers.

At 8pm, dim the lights in the WMC because it’s time for RADIO PLATFFORM PRESENTS… featuring four hot and upcoming artists. Check it out on Facebook and tell your friends.

SUNDAY 28 APRIL

Writing this is torture. I would love to go to any of these events, but instead I will be in Manchester, likely not having half as much fun. Enough about me, though: here’s what you can get up to at RawFfest this Sunday.

• Not a Rawffest event but it’s at 9am at the bay, so you could fit it in: Birds of the Bay. Join a wetland ranger on an enjoyable jaunt to spot a whole different breed of tweeters than what you get online. Facebook event.
• NoFitState Youth Circus will take their antics to the streets of the Bay. Who knows what could happen?
• Flossy and Boo are back with a comedy workshop for 11-16 year olds at 11am. We’re huge fans of this duo- they even got namedropped back in episode 1 of Strangetown.
• Following on from Sat’s comics workshops, Draw Narratives Like A Pro is on at 11am.
• You can even jazz up your clothes at an 11am upcycling workshop.
• Then there are a whole host of plays to choose from- Ed’s already plugged Bard in the Bay, then there’s Voices From Care, and Cheese from Hijinx Theatre. If you time it right you could probably watch all three in order.
• At 1:30pm, learn what’s hot or not in the commercial podcasting world with Bengo Media.

Permaculture – Global Gardens Cardiff

MONDAY 29 APRIL

6pm at Global Gardens: a Permaculture Potluck. Share some locally grown food with your Cardiff neighbours. There will also be a screening of the film We The Uncivilised. FB/ Eventbrite.

As ever, on a Monday I recommend chess night at Blue Honey Night Cafe from about 8pm (be fashionably late).

WEDNESDAY 1 MAY

Mayday, mayday, it’s finally the end of the article. What a day.

Three quick ones for Wednesday antics:

Should more Welsh students study in Wales? asks this panel, and What can be Done About It? More graduates are leaving Wales than arriving! Booooo! London is quite literally taking our jobs! What shall we do about it? Find out at this event from 6pm at Callaghan Square. FB/ EB.

The incredible-looking new play Shooting Rabbits, all about the Spanish Civil War, begins at the Sherman Theatre at 7:45pm this Wednesday. Get tickets or email me for press if you want to write a Sprout review.

At 8pm, Comedy at the Albion is down in Penarth. Free entry. FB.

If you do go to any of the events exhaustively recommended here, tell them The Sprout sent you!

If you want to get Free and Cheap Things To Do in Cardiff as a handy weekly email newsletter, you can sign up here. I’ll send out the first one next week.

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