It was a pleasure and honour to welcome Sir Peter Bazalgette (non-executive Chair of ITV) to the BEYOND 2021 stage, as the opening keynote. Watch the video of his full speech at the conference in Belfast, or read in full below.

Andrew Chitty, UKRI Challenge Director and Chair of Beyond, puts the speech in context:

“Sir Peter Bazalgette’s 2017 report on the Creative Industries was instrumental in framing the Creative Industries as an R&D intensive sector. He also launched the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Creative Industries Clusters programme at our very first BEYOND Conference, so we were delighted to welcome him back to Beyond 4 in Belfast. In this typically acute, playful and provocative speech he takes stock of what our current R&D Programmes have achieved but develops from that a vision for the future. At a time when the UK government places ever more emphasis on innovation as a driver for the economy, he challenges the Chancellor to follow the logic of his observation that “there are only a few things you are world class at”, the Creative Industries being one, and to underpin the future growth of the sector with a significant commitment to invest in creative research and innovation.”

Sir Peter Bazalgette @ BEYOND 2021:

“It’s fortunate, and definitely not accidental, that BEYOND is being hosted in Belfast by Future Screen’s this year. Northern Ireland is turning into a trailblazer for the Creative Industries… the only place in the UK where “WINTER IS COMING” is a promise not a threat. More of that later.

And I’ll say unapologetically that I have no slides, videos or other pyrotechnics for you today. One, I can’t compete with the heroic haptics all around us….Two, I can give your eyes a rest for quarter of an hour. So, if you’re sitting comfortably, as they used to say on the steam radio in the last century, I’ll begin.

To start with, let me take you back to 1997. That was the year we had the happy news of a brand new birth…

Roughly the announcement went like this: To Britain and Northern Ireland, a new sector is born: we welcome the Creative Industries to the World. And it was to the world because we were the first country ever to define such a sector. The promising infant thrived and was soon being measured by the ONS via nine key sub-sectors: Advertising & Marketing, Architecture, Crafts, Design & Designer Fashion, Film/TV/Video/Radio/Photography, IT, Software & Computer Games, Publishing, Museums/Galleries/Libraries, Music/Performing & Visual Arts. And a useful, economically-slanted definition was added: “industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of Intellectual Property.”

That definition and the statistics, championed by DCMS, started to indicate both the size and growth of a sector we could now say was entering adolescence. (As we know, the latest year we have figures for is that last year before Covid, 2019… when the GVA of the Creative Industries was measured at £115 billion. This represented around 6% of the entire economy and growth at three times the national figure).

Despite this impressive record, the sector was still viewed with some suspicion by its older siblings – some in manufacturing were more than 100 years old and didn’t take this young whippersnapper that seriously. Even though it had attracted a couple of godparents to advocate for it: the Creative Industries’ Federation and the Creative Industries Council.

And so we get to today. I’m going to argue this morning that the Creative Industries has now come of age. We have dominant world positions in music and TV formats. Our video games are played on all continents. The UK’s advertising and marketing power global brands. (The whole sector, including software, drove £58 billion of exports of goods and services in 2019, by the way). Our design graduates create vehicles for all the planet’s major manufacturers. Inward investment is pouring into the UK’s film studios from the international video streamers, capitalising on our ideas, our craft skills and our tax credits. And I’m particularly fond of this stat: 9 out of the last 10 special effects Oscars have been won by British designers. This included the following collaboration: best representation of a black hole in space. (couldn’t that be a category of its own every year?).

The point is, we’re now demonstrating that the Creative Industries is genuinely an R&D sector as much as, say, Life Sciences, Fintech or Green Energy. I’ll give you hard examples of this in a moment.

So the Creative Industries needs to be taken more seriously than it is. Then it’ll realise its full potential as a catalyst for our fast growing knowledge economy. This is not to mention the sector’s role as the definer of our culture, values and identity… the trusted news that informs our democracy, the fiction in all media that enriches our national conversation, the video games which entertain us, the theatres and museums which both define place and drive tourism, the cultural exports which drive our soft power, more broadly the rock upon which our humane education is built and the means by which we nurture empathetic citizens. That’s an important perspective, but one for another time.

So when I say, not taken seriously enough, is that just a bit of special pleading, a piece of sectoral lobbying? Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. But no, I’m making a broader point. Our national mindset is still too rooted in old certainties, we have some way to go to wake up to new realities. I’ve just conducted a survey to show you what I mean. I looked at recent national media mentions of five very important sectors over a month: Life Sciences, Automotive, Aerospace, Oil & Gas… and the Creative Industries. They weren’t picked at random – in 2019 the Creative Industries were worth more annually than those other four sectors put together. And, rather like the Eurovision Song Contest, the votes are in….

Life Sciences was mentioned 278 times, Aerospace 494, Automotive 537, Oil & Gas 742 times. And the Creative sector? Just 55 times. Now I grant you that the latest James Bond movie and the new Adele single were probably mentioned several thousand times during the period, and also that the prevalence of Oil and Gas is obvious given the current energy crisis. But what I was really getting at was that a media mention of a sector in general is indicative of the public consideration and perceived importance of that sector. And our sector, despite its value and growth, is still a bit of a well kept secret. And that’s a criticism for all of us….we have work to do!

Actually, I couldn’t resist adding one more sector to my survey, mostly for reasons of devilry. I also asked about fishing… it came out, wait for it, top with 934 mentions. 934. Now I like line-caught sea bass as much as the next person….but really! Have we got our focus right? Are we sufficiently future-facing? Not on this evidence, not at all.

Now, to make good industrial policy you need a good data set. Despite the good work done by DCMS to map our sector overall, Andy Pratt, Professor of Cultural Economy at City University, argues that we do not have the data set we need. Partly because the Creative Industries are considered by some as too artful a construct (that’s my point about not being taken seriously enough), and partly because the lens through which we analyse our endeavours relies on old, mid-20th century definitions… and on out of date taxonomies. Taxonomies which have not caught up with the realities of the service industries.

As a result, as a nation we over-inform ourselves about declining industrial sectors and we under-inform ourselves about a high growth one, such as the Creative Industries. Further challenges… though they’re ones we’d better get used to in the future knowledge economy…are firstly, getting to grips with a sector which contains everything from sustainable textiles to augmented reality apps; and secondly, the complexity of mapping a sector which has some very big companies but also many, many SME’s.

This matters because the government’s BUILD BACK BETTER PLAN FOR GROWTH, published in the summer, identified the Creative Industries as a key sector for the future (it actually mentioned us 8 times in fact… am I counting? By now you’ll have realised I definitely am). So our potential has, in principle, been identified by BEIS. But to develop the policies which will deliver on that, we’re going to need much better data and understanding of what we can do.

Skills is one of the three engines of growth, defined by BEIS, by the way. But again, our National Industrial and Employment classifications are still based on older, more traditional models that fail to capture an accurate picture of our now dominant service industries. The sector’s Policy & Evidence Centre, based at Nesta, has recently produced a revealing report on these challenges.

Just to underline how agile we need to become….with the typhoon that is the 4th Industrial Revolution sweeping through our working lives….Dell Technologies recently posited that 85% of the ‘job concepts’ we’ll be using in 2030 haven’t yet been invented. And we need to look to the sunrise sectors, of which the Creative Industries is one, to imagine and generate these roles. As I pointed out in my 2017 Review of the Creative Industries, the million jobs that CI can deliver in the next decade will be durable and high value, in contrast to other sectors where AI and automation will be destroying whole occupations. You need people for creativity. Which brings me to the great work going on here in Northern Ireland.

Belfast, as is rightly celebrated, was a shipbuilding city. What will be the dynamic industries here in the 21st Century? That is a question that your universities, your politicians and your talented young people are now answering. As you know, part of the answer you have come up with is Life Sciences and Cyber Technology. But you’re demonstrating that the Creative Industries also have the potential to be a large scale employer and an engine of growth. And almost by definition, they’re for everyone to participate in, rather than rooted in one community.

My 2017 Review recommended investment in Creative Clusters around the UK. I’ll tell you more about these in a minute, but thanks to the imagination of AHRC and Innovate UK, both part of UKRI, this investment happened. Belfast’s bid was one of the successful ones, judged strictly on merit. Ulster University and Queens have partnered with the likes of Northern Ireland Screen to start to realise what virtual production in the screen industries will look like within a decade.

You already had a leading position in modern production, famously filming 8 seasons of Game of Thrones, right here at Titanic Studios. Not to mention Line of Duty, close to my heart since it’s made by an ITV company for the BBC. But you asked yourselves the question: in an age of 5G, robotics and real time game engines how will films be shot in the future? With funding from both your City Deal and your Cluster you’re now setting about answering that question. There’s the SMIL virtual production unit at Harbour Studios with Ulster University as a partner, and there’s the training facility set up with Epic. This enables a crucible in which new companies can prosper as well…you have Humain and Retinize also pursuing new kinds of virtual production, and Yellow Design who are demonstrating how AR is going to be a ‘Titanic’ consumer entertainment tool, right here in this quarter. You have young ambitious companies like Aura working on its immersive Animation Platform, and Big Telly Theatre with their rather wonderful Zoom Macbeth: To channel my inner Ken Branagh…. “I have no spur, to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition.” Vaulting ambition, indeed, and driven by defining fruitful R&D investments. Big Telly Theatre themselves are now moving on to immersive online shopping apps.

Success in these important projects will not only bring benefits to Northern Ireland, from inward investment to jobs to tourism, it’ll also help drive Britain’s creative industries forward as a world force. And demonstrate that our sector is future facing and will be fuelled by the R&D it needs and merits going forward.

By the way, there’s another thing that’s woefully out of date. Much of the research and development we invest in in our sector (I know this from the rapid modernisation of ITV, which I chair) does not qualify technically as R&D in the current definitions…because they belong once again to the last century. France, Germany, Italy and South Korea have got ahead of us by modernising their R&D definitions, by the way.

What about the other Creative Clusters and the allied Audience-of-the-Future investment? Well, just to give you a flavour: the Future Fashion Factory in Leeds is pursuing new materials, sustainable design and supply chain innovation…..Creative Informatics in Edinburgh is exploring what data-driven AI should look like for creative businesses….In York they’re inventing new ways of delivering screen narratives via 5G…In Glasgow they’re showing how to exploit VR for industrial training….and in Bristol they have an AR robot which is eating parts of the city (relax…let me remind you that augmented reality is strictly virtual…and very entertaining).

Now, I mentioned earlier the UKRI investment in the Clusters. Over 5 years it’ll be £56 million. And initially we thought we’d attract a £28 million match from the sector. But that co-investment now looks like it’ll reach £150 million. This shows us several things: a small but shrewd public catalyst can trigger a much greater industry R&D investment, and one which wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And let me remind you of the context for this: Britain’s target is to increase R&D as a percentage of GDP, from its current 1.7% to 2.4%, by 2027. It won’t happen unless industry steps up in partnership with government.

The Creative Clusters (a very small investment compared to other R&D-heavy sectors) could now be scaled up in other parts of the country…delivering on the government’s twin objectives of innovation and levelling up. We cannot solve Britain’s productivity puzzle without investing in new ideas. And a point of reference for you…as we struggle up from 1.7 to 2.4%….South Korea is already approaching a 5% figure.

What else have we learnt? That with locally-led cluster initiatives like this we can achieve greater regional penetration and greater connectivity with SME’s than we ever believed possible before. And that it’s only through profound and sustained collaboration – not just between creative design and technology, but also between the STEM disciplines and the humanities – that we’ll imagine our future (that latter collaboration is, by the way, precisely how we’ve been fighting Covid).

DCMS, to its credit, has also been running a similar creative scale-up investment for SME’s. In the next phase of the internet age, must Silicon Valley take all the value? Or can our sector pursue some ‘unicorns’ of its own? The Clusters have linked university research excellence to more than 575 SME’s in novel partnerships. This is how we’ll harness the best IP from our next generation of creators and properly exploit what we’ve always been good at: world-beating ideas. That looks and sounds like a plan for growth.

As I have said, we have work to do to get our message over. Nowhere is this more valid than in the investment community. I sit on a couple of boards for Edge Investments, which – unusually – specialises in the Creative Sector. Their investment director, David Fisher, points out the financing gap for the creative economy across Europe is estimated to exceed £8 billion. And he reminds us of the Creative Industries Council’s 2018 survey which found a lack of understanding of the sector by financiers and a distrust of our often intangible assets.

But Edge is showing that when you take the trouble to get to grips with creative businesses there are good returns…Edge sits in the top decile of venture capitalists. So when they add the term Createch to the existing Fintech and Edutech we should take notice. Given, we still need to do much of the work I’ve mentioned on data and classifications to make the term really meaningful.

Another truth David Fisher highlights is how the Creative Industries are increasingly important to other sectors in the UK economy. Beyond the obvious point about the power of our advertising and marketing expertise, increasingly creative sector products and services contribute to supply chains elsewhere. It’s calculated that for every GVA pound earned in our sector in 2019, we also generated a further 50p elsewhere in the economy.

Our global competitiveness will increasingly depend on the fusion of creative and technological innovation. Product design, service design, human-centred design, design engineering…. these are critical for all sectors going forward. When I was asked, a few months ago, would I put my name forward to be the next chair of the Royal College of Art I thought about it very carefully. For two seconds. And then I said yes, of course. Because its alumni include Jonny Ive, James Dyson and Thomas Heatherwick. Because its graduates study robotics, mobility and inclusive design. They’re imagining the devices we’ll drive in the future through what sort of cities. And like other of our rainmaking colleges, they already have a record of funded spin outs in these fields. It’s at this nexus of technology and design that much public and private value can be created in the next decade. (Look out, by the way, for the announcement of the 10 commissioned projects of Festival 22…to be announced tomorrow. They exemplify this sort of ‘STEAM’ fusion.)

As we were dozing gently this August, enjoying our first legitimate holidays for some time, a statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer rather woke us up: “For any country, there are only a few things that you are world class at,” said Rishi. “For us, in the UK, the creative industries, arts, culture is something we are genuinely world class at. I do think it’s important.”

We agree with you, Rishi, we agree. The Creative Industries are like a coiled spring waiting to release their energy into the economy. We have the talent, we have the ideas…now we need a more ambitious strategy, fed by 21st century data and insights. And from that will flow the investment opportunity. Yes there’s an important role for government and public funders. But most of this is down to us. Shall we get started? To be fair, I think you have already got started here in Belfast. Thank you.

At BEYOND, there is a unique opportunity to Meet the Researchers behind these projects, in order to hear in more depth about the thought processes behind their work – as well as providing an opportunity to engage with the researchers and ask questions.

We are delighted to introduce you to some of these projects in this article – be sure to check out the Poster Exhibition page on the website to view them all.

Overcoming Barriers to Social and Hierarchical Places Through the Design of Immersive Composition and Performance Software

Lewis Smith is a PhD candidate, composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and programmer currently developing a package of software with disabled musicians using immersive technology and participatory design methods. Lewis’ research describes an immersive performance and composition system designed with musicians from Derry/Londonderry who identify as being either physically or intellectually disabled. Using the resulting software these musicians compose using sound, space, 3D objects and materials. They experience their compositions in a networked virtual space of the composer’s choosing using multimodal interactions to conduct and perform.

Club XXY: Radical Practice in Virtual Environments

Tessa Ratuszynska is an artist, researcher and producer based between Glasgow and Bristol, making work at the intersection of Documentary, Virtual Reality, Installation and Performance. 
Club XXY is a practice based research project imagining the future of social spaces, both online and offline in the wake of 2020/1. Through interviews with architects, journalists, technologists and club promoters, Club XXY explores how systemic exclusion and oppression are imbued into the fabric of built and digital environments, and the critical resistance practices employed by space makers in order to centre and affirm the marginalised communities they serve.

Vocalic Bodies and Spaces – using animation to create Irish language representation in unionist East Belfast

Don Duncan is an academic, journalist and storyteller whose practice and research extends across both audiovisual and live, spoken word formats. Don’s research discusses how animation – in the current context in Northern Ireland, where the Irish language has been divisively politicised along sectarian lines – is uniquely capable of generating representation of the language and disseminating it in a way that minimises the risk of backlash.

Raising The Multitude – user-centred design in the making of an interactive artwork.

Jamie Gledhill is an East Anglia based Digital Artist and a Lecturer at Norwich University of the Arts where he tutors on the BSc Games Development and BSc User Experience Design courses, both of which he helped to launch. 
Jamie was originally commissioned by Cambridge-based art tech agency Collusion in July 2020 to produce an interactive artwork to be exhibited in a multiple-screen, surround sound environment. The final format is a 15-minute-long interactive narrative experience for two ‘players’ using whole body interaction, achieved through the Microsoft Kinect sensor, created using the Unity game engine.

Don’t Forget to Check Out the Meet the Researchers Sessions at BEYOND

Over the first day of BEYOND there are several ‘Meet the Researchers’ sessions, which provide an opportunity to dig into the details of the above projects and more! We have highlighted the times of these sessions below:

Wednesday 20 October:

⏰ 11:30-12:30

⏰ 13:30-14:30 

⏰ 16:00-17:00

Here is a taster of some of the amazing projects we have showcasing at BEYOND this year…

Project XO Remote: Interactive Dance & Robotics Installation for Online Audiences

Project XO (Live) is a cutting-edge dance installation devised by New Movement Collective with collaborators Kai Lab, Simon Haenggi and Fenyce Workspace. This unique encounter invites members of the public to wear a robotic exoskeleton which moves their body in a precise choreography. Exploring themes of power, agency and empathy, the robotic suit both subdues and empowers the wearer as we watch this haunting interaction between the participant, dancer and the technology.

Project XO Remote Is brought to you by New Movement Collective

Curatours Museum of Plastic 2121: In the Future You’ll Find Plastic Only in Museums…

Museum of Plastic is an imagined future museum, built to teach future generations about plastics and tell the story of how activism started in 2021 led to the positive change that resulted in us cleaning up our oceans and forever changing our relationship with plastic.

The world today can seem bleak, with terrifying predictions creating deep-seated anxiety for the future, throwing doubt into the impact of our actions. Taking inspiration from the Solarpunk* movement, this is a positive look at our future.
Museum of Plastic is brought to you by Cooperative Innovations

Seeds of Life: A Meditative, Interactive Journey Through the Natural World

Seeds of Life is an immersive, interactive experience built for the Oculus Quest 2. It is inspired by the ways in which trees, and by extension, all of nature, communicate underground through a vast fungal network. The player begins in a space-like underworld where they activate ‘energy’ which grows into abstract roots. They travel along these roots and on the way create animals and plants from this same energy.
Seeds of Life is brought to you by National Film and TV School + StoryFutures Academy

Dragon Legends: An Augmented-Reality Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Card Game

Dragon Legends is an R&D prototype for an Augmented Reality (AR) card game to support seriously ill young people (aged 13-16) in their transition from child to adult services. It aims to help these young people and their families address anxieties and concerns they face around transition of care so they can engage with their illness and its likely impact on their lives as they move into the adult world.
Dragon Legends is brought to you by Play Well for Life

Check Out the Full Showcase Lineup

These are just a few from an array of projects that are part of the BEYOND 2021 Immersive Futures Lab showcase. Be sure to have a browse through all the showcase projects and don’t miss the Meet the Makers sessions, to gain a valuable insight into the makers behind these innovative, cutting edge projects:

Meet the Makers Sessions at BEYOND

Augmenting Places: AR for the People

As the medium becomes more popular, what responsibilities do AR makers have to place – and the communities that live there? Angela Chan, an expert in innovative inclusion in storytelling, talks to leading AR makers to find out how it can be used to open up both places and our imaginations for new encounters with history, our environment and each other – before questioning how we should address the potential issues around accessibility, inclusion and ownership that this opening up of place can unlock.

Join us for this discussion panel and Q&A with: 

➤ Angela Chan – Head of Inclusion / Doctoral Researcher at StoryFutures, Royal Holloway, University of London

➤ Charles Golding – Creative Director of CARGO Movement

➤ Rob Morgan – Creative Director of Playlines

➤ Dr. Paul Clarke – Senior Lecturer in Performance Studies at ​​University of Bristol &  Artistic Director at Uninvited Guests

The New Heavy Industries: Building Belfast’s Creative Economy

The Screen Media Innovation Lab (SMIL) is bringing Virtual Production facilities to support the fast growing creative economy of Northern Ireland, but the vision goes beyond physical infrastructure. This session tells the story of how SMIL came about and asks what is the real value and true potential of both Virtual Production and SMIL.

Join us for this discussion panel and Q&A with speakers: 

➤ Dr. Declan Keeney – Director of the Ulster Screen Academy at Ulster University

➤ Professor Anthony Lilley MBE – CEO of Scenario Two

➤ Eric Carney – Founder of The Third Floor  (Game of Thrones VFX company!)

Materiality in the Metaverse: Tools to Thrive in the New Spaces of Fashion

Fashion experts from academia and industry explore the distinctions between the three levels of the new Fashion Metaverse, the opportunities and issues presented by each, and the tools required to support the next generation of designers and fashion entrepreneurs as they navigate these new worlds and markets.

Join us for this discussion panel and Q&A with: 

➤ Jade How – Head of Fashion at Lockwood Publishing Ltd

➤ Professor Jane Harris – Professor of Digital Design and Innovation at University of the Arts London

Wide Open Spaces: Building Rural Creative Networks

A third of creative business hubs are outside of the UKs big cities. Beyond them lie thousands of small innovators and entrepreneurs, many in remote places. Geography sets unique challenges as they grow, but these places are also ideally placed to reinvent themselves for the digital age. This panel looks at how networks are being built that will drive innovation and growth, with: 

➤ Joanne Evans – Creative Industries Impact and Partnerships and Development Manager at University of Exeter

➤ Dr. Karen Cross – Academic Strategic Lead for Fashion Management, Events, Tourism and Hospitality at Robert Gordon University

➤ Emily Sorrell – Innovation Designer

➤ Dr. Josh Siepel – PEC Work Strand Lead for Creative Clusters, Innovation and Access to Finance at SPRU, University of Sussex and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre 

More Session to be Confirmed in the Coming Weeks

Make sure you check out the BEYOND schedule for the full rundown of events over the two days of BEYOND (20-21 October), plus all the details on the extra special events taking place on the 19th & 22nd of October in Belfast.

See you there!

Fuelling the Future: How to Build New Place-Based Talent Pipelines

For creative economies to thrive they need a pipeline of talent as fuel. This panel, composed of Rosalind Coleman, Dominic Lusardi, Frank Lyons, Rachel Nicholson and Emma Turner,  looks at how businesses and educators are working in different regions of the UK to devise new ways to train the makers of the future. This session includes an audience Q&A so be ready to join them at 12:10 on 20 October to get involved in the discussion!

Monoliths: Northern Landscapes, Female Voices

What is it like to be a Northern woman? Who exactly is a ‘Northern woman’? In this short-talk, Lucy Hammond gives us a sneak preview into how Pilot Theatre‘s latest project, ‘Monoliths’, combines commissioned writing, captured soundscapes and virtual worlds within a performative context to draw audiences into the inner worlds of some of the many identities shaped by a single region.

Belfast Stories: Beyond Barriers

Join filmmaker, Seán Murray and Artist Deepa Mann-Kler for this short-talk as they explore  life and work in relation to notions of ‘place’ and ‘Identity’ in Northern Ireland. They discuss two very different stories and journeys in illustrating what belonging means and how the physical environment affects people both deeply and generationally.

The City: A Legacy System?

In this short talk, Sinead O’Sullivan, a researcher at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, is joined by Dr. Parag Khanna, Dr. Mark Lutter and Professor Alex McDowell to investigate how the long-standing trend towards digital presence at work, accelerated by our experience of lockdown, is changing how we manage creativity and innovation. And how, in turn, this is challenging our traditional notions of cities – and nations – and how we inhabit them.

Blinkers Off: Seeing the World Through Equine Eyes

Have you ever wondered what  the world looks like through the eyes of a horse? In this short talk on 20 October at 16:30 , Alan Hook introduces his research using immersive technologies to explore the borders between human and non-human animals.

2 Days, 40+ Speakers & Some Extra Special Events!

These are just a few of many sessions taking place over the two days of the BEYOND – not to mention the extra events taking place in Belfast on the days book-ending BEYOND. Take a look at our full schedule for all the details.

See you at BEYOND!

Browse our speaker page to discover more about the exciting talent that will be joining us in Belfast to share their thoughts, ideas and expertise.

Welcoming Our BEYOND Keynote Speaker: Sir Peter Bazalgette

Sir Peter Bazalgette will be opening BEYOND on Tuesday 20th October with a keynote reflecting his thoughts on the conference theme of Creative Places. Sir Peter is non-executive Chair of ITV and also Chairs online retailer, LoveCrafts. He has been a Non-Executive Board Member of UKRI and from 2013 to 2017 was Chair of Arts Council England. He has halso been a Non-Executive Director of DCMS and Channel 4, as well as President of the Royal Television Society and Chief Creative Officer of Endemol.

Angela Chan: Head of Inclusion & Doctoral Researcher at StoryFutures, Royal Holloway University

Angela Chan will be joining us at BEYOND to chair the Augmenting Places: AR for the People session, which will be exploring the responsibilities that AR makers have to place and the communities that live in those places. Angela has worked across the UK television industry for over twenty years in documentary and commissioning roles. Most recently she was Head of Creative Diversity for C4 and has held similar roles at the BBC and Pact.

Sinead O’Sullivan: Senior Researcher at Harvard Business School

Sinead O’Sullivan is a Senior Researcher working with Prof. Michael E. Porter at Harvard Business School, focusing on strategy and competitiveness. Her research into technology and governance has taken her previously to the European Space Agency, NASA, Harvard & MIT.

At BEYOND, Sinead will be moderating ‘The City: A Legacy System?’ session, which will investigate how the long-standing trend towards digital presence at work, massively accelerated by our experience of lockdown, is changing how we manage creativity and innovation and the place of cities in our working lives.

Parag Khanna: Leading Global Strategy Advisor, World Traveler, & Best-Selling Author

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author as well as being Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap. He will be joining Sinead O’Sullivan in The City: A Legacy System?’ session alongside Dr. Mark Lutter and welcoming back Professor Alex McDowell, a keynote at BEYOND 2018 in London, as they discuss how our traditional notions of cities – and nations – and how we inhabit them, are being challenged.

Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”

We have all of the above and so much more lined up for this years’ BEYOND Conference. Our schedule and speaker pages are now live on the website for those who would like more detail of events taking place in Belfast, 20-21 October.

Tickets are on sale now and don’t forget that there are extra special events taking place on the 19th and 22nd October for those who attend the conference in person.

See you at BEYOND!

Tuesday 19th October

On the Tuesday before BEYOND kicks off there are a number of fantastic events to orientate you in Belfast and inform you about the city’s rich history, including the ‘Hidden Heritage of James Connolly’ tour as well as a guided tour of Belfast’s street art. In the afternoon you can preview the world premiere of Department Story by Big Telly Theatre Company, before attending the BEYOND Speakers and Delegates Dinner, where there will be a chance to mingle with the other BEYOND delegates and speakers.

Friday 22nd October

On Friday the 22nd there are yet more exciting activities on offer to those attending the conference in person. Themed around HBO’s incredible Game of Thrones, which was filmed across 25 different locations in Northern Ireland, there are two exclusive tours showcasing these locations and giving an insight into the making of the series. BEYOND delegates can choose between the VIP ‘Hang out with Hodor’ tour which showcases the mythical lands of Westeros and Essos with Flip Robinson, body double for “Hodor” and “The Mountain”, and the Winterfell Tour in which you visit the castle and Demesne, taking in the beautiful surrounding landscapes and far-reaching views across the lough along the way.

All of these amazing opportunities have been made possible by Future Screens NI who are supporting this years’ conference alongside UKRI.

See you in Belfast!

Talented teams across the Creative Industries have been pivoting to digital, adapting their plays, games and festivals to work when delivered to us at home, within the confines of our four walls. Last month we saw Kylie Minogue present a livestream virtual gig that promised to take viewers from ‘solitary isolation to a ‘euphoric dancefloor of togetherness’. A bold and energising promise for these unusual times. But if you’re not the most enthusiastic dancer in the real world – how does that play out in the confines of your own kitchen? Some suggest it adds a whole new level of engagement; for others, there’s nothing like the real thing.

Audience Research Poll at BEYOND 2020

At this month’s BEYOND conference, the Audience Research: Landscape of a Pandemic session explored how lockdown has impacted audience engagement across the Creative Industries. It considered how audiences are motivated to uncover new experiences, with a presentation of key research insights. This included the work of Professor Jonny Freeman, Professor of Psychology (and Academic Lead for Knowledge Exchange) at Goldsmiths, University of London and MD of i2 Media Research Research, in partnership with Nesta.

This encompassed a new audience segmentation based on a large-scale nationally representative survey, completed by i2 media research as part of the Innovate UK and UKRI funded Audience of the Future programme.

Freeman quizzed the BEYOND audience on some of the questions included in the segmentation:

“The audience polls we ran at BEYOND conference told us that that audiences feel uncertain, and are really missing feeling part of an audience collective. This reflects really well some of the key insights i2 media research and Nesta obtained in our Audiences In Lockdown research: that audiences felt pretty negative during lockdown, and are really wanting to feel part of an audience at live performances as soon as possible.”

Jonny continues, “The poll also revealed that the most likely lasting impact of how we have navigated the pandemic is greater use of digital distribution for live performance. Again, this speaks to our Audiences in Lockdown research (and multiple trials and other research reports by others) that new and existing audiences are open to theatre and performance coming to them – even when we’re allowed back in venues. The carnage of the pandemic has caused immense pain and difficulty, but it has also created opportunities for the sector.”

Meet The Audience Insights

Based on the research, i2 Media Research’s recommendations for meeting the needs of audiences whilst generating revenue for cultural organisations include:

1. Develop a skills pipeline to support innovative production.
   
2. Invest in virtual production methods to support remote working and more efficient workflows.
   
3. Develop the skills and know-how to distribute a range of digital content options to audiences via innovative and widely adopted technology platforms.
   
4. Develop and test new business models e.g., testing audiences’ willingness to pay for a range of digital content types.
   
5. Post CV-19, synchronous distribution of live, in-venue and digitally with diverse audiences and increase reach and access to UK cultural content globally.

Download the Research Findings

Download a summary of the research findings and the full deck from i2 Media Research, presented at BEYOND 2020.

Download now

Watch the Audience Research session at BEYOND 2020

Professor Jonny Freeman was joined by Leah Kurta from i2 Media Research and Fran Sanderson from Nesta on the main stage at BEYOND on Monday 30 November for the Audience Research: Landscape of a Pandemic session which BEYOND members can view below (paid access to non-members coming soon).

AUDIENCE RESEARCH: LANDSCAPE OF A PANDEMIC

How has lockdown impacted audience engagement across the Creative Industries, with key research insights from a spread of expert sector representatives.

Watch now.

This year’s BEYOND conference, from 30 November to 03 December 2020, featured 175 speakers across 4 days, with over 80 sessions exploring how the Creative Industries can collectively build back better, but different – sessions from each day of the programme are available to view on-demand.