June 2022, six months into an already mad year. A year that started with a desire to open and party, was partially closed along with empty shelves and rising prices.
What would a creative festival look like this year?
After two years of being virtual, of curating online content and experiences, we needed to get out, seek new inspirations, socialise, and share good ideas.
We’re not superstitious, but with this being our 13th edition and the world in flux, we felt the need to share an open mindset.
It was time to flex a ‘Be Lucky’ vibe to one and all.
Now luck is the belief that defines the experience of improbable events that can happen by chance. We loved the notion of pulling unexpected creative goodness into our orbit through newly discovered experiences.
With that, we set off, looking for creative things that appeared into our orbit.
What would our existing network reveal, and how could our ‘Be Lucky’ attitude find new things to do, experience, love and learn?
Our slightly chaotic approach mined a myriad of activities and inspirations, from old and new favourites including Aire Place Studios, Apple WWDC, Arts Council England, ArtSect.xyz, Bill Drummond, BIMA Beyond, Birmingham Design Festival, Cafe Oto (Dalston), CCA Derry, Consensus by CoinDesk, Creative Boom, Crowd of Favours, Dandelion Festival Glasgow, Ellis House Arts, Every Metaverse, Glasgow Jazz Festival, Glastonbury on the BBC, Good Reads, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, London Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF), Manchester First Street Festival, Ministry of Sound, MOCDA, New Glasgow Society, NFT.NYC, Nudgestock (Ogilvy), Rooftop Arts Centre (Corby), OpenAI, Palm Studio, Penkiln Burn, Pep Talk from Represent, POAP.xyz, Pride Month, Project Ability, Rich Mix (Bethnal Green), Sisterhood Open Mic (Bradford), Soccer Aid, The AOI, The Big Innovation Centre, The Hunterian (Glasgow), The Lovie Awards, United Nations, Weird Dall-E, Wild and Kind (Glasgow), Wild Seed Studios, #WomensArt, Woolwich Works, World Environment Day, and World Oceans Day.
We also bookended June with two great events from BIMA; a May Metaverse event, hosted by Digitas in London, followed by a September session on Creative AI in Edinburgh hosted by Dentsu Creative. We also ended the year with a December session around Creativity for Good. All three events were full of lively discussion offering quality perspectives on the dominant themes of the year. Check out the guest speakers below.
- Sasha Jiang, AR/VR Creative at Digitas
- Dr Vanja Garaj, Reader in Design and Director of Research and Innovation at Brunel Design School, Brunel University London
- James Whatley, Chief Strategy Officer at Diva Agency
- Graeme Sutherland, Creative Production Team Leader, Dentsu Creative
- Lindsey Carr, painter/programmer
- Theodore Koterwas, Artist
- Marina Pedrosa, Service Designer at Kin+Carta
- Joel Bailey, Product & Service Director at ArwenAI
- Alex Porter-Smith, Co-founder and MD at High Tide
Looking back, we can honestly say we got lucky, lucky in the way things evolved across the year and the ways it inspired us. You see, the last few years have been a challenge or is that an emerging opportunity? We’ve been bellowing a slow burn of an idea, on how we evolve and how we operate for the next decade. The process helped reveal and crystalize where we’re going, you could say we got lucky and feels good. On that detail, it’s a more to follow…
As ever, a big thank you to all our guest speakers, attendees, and the creators responsible for the ideas and work we showcased. Much respect.
BTW1: If you’ve got a creative event happening in June or July 2023, we’d love to hear about it.
BTW2: Sign up for The People's excellent Newsletter.
BTW3: We continue love the creative mix of contemporary music and album artwork and are inspired by Bleep’s 2022 New Year selection.