The Moth GrandSLAM London — Live Storytelling Competition
Ten true personal stories, five minutes each, no notes — The Moth GrandSLAM brings its competitive storytelling format to the Southbank Centre for a night of unrehearsed human experience.
Why we picked this
The GrandSLAM format strips away everything except the story and the person telling it — no slides, no notes, five minutes to hold a room — which makes for the kind of live event that reminds you why being in a room with strangers still matters.
The Moth GrandSLAM is the competitive apex of the organization’s storytelling series: ten performers, each telling a true personal story of five minutes or less, judged by audience members chosen at random. No notes allowed, no props, no safety net. The format rewards precision and honesty in equal measure; the stories that win are almost always the ones that take the biggest risk.
At the Southbank Centre, the GrandSLAM draws from storytellers who have competed in Moth StorySLAMs across London, making the evening both a showcase and a community event. The range of voices and subjects is genuinely unpredictable. That unpredictability is the point. You might hear a story about a parent’s illness, a bureaucratic absurdity, a moment of unexpected kindness, or a disaster that became something else.
The Southbank setting adds a particular electricity to the format: a room full of strangers, all listening hard, all being surprised together.