This month, we announced that our Innovation Festival is back for 2022.
Every year, our Innovation Festivals are bigger, bolder, brighter and more creative than the last.
But something I always get asked is, as the event continues to grow and grow, how do we manage to keep everything on track?
Those of you who joined us last year will remember that we actually had over 50 sprints, hacks and dashes running over the course of four days.
And previous festivals have seen upwards of 3,000 people attending.
And with so much going on, how do we manage to ensure that we are all driving towards the same goal?
Well, one of the ways we do this is through the theme that we pick for the event.
The theme is incredibly important. It helps us to navigate and steer towards joint objectives.
Every festival that we’ve held has had a specific theme and this has become increasingly important over the last few years.
In 2020, as I’m sure you’ll all remember, the festival was pushed back a few months following the early days of COVID.
We didn’t let the pandemic stop us, or indeed, stop innovation.
We adapted.
We were forced to innovate and take the festival completely online for the first time.
That’s when we decided to go with ‘Build Back Better’ as the theme. As the event and all of the activities focused on the learnings we could take from the pandemic to help society, businesses, communities bounce back.
Last year, it was ‘The Brilliant Get-Together’ – which purposely had two meanings.
It meant that brilliant people came together for the event. Gathering the greatest minds and thinkers is what we try to achieve with our festivals.
But it was also a brilliant get together. A celebration of innovation, being back together. It was also a way of bringing people back together after the pandemic separated us.
So, onto the theme for 2022. And Untapped Potential.
We chose this because this year’s event will focus on finding and bringing together untapped talent from all kinds of different sectors, backgrounds, and locations across the globe.
We’ll be tapping into people, places we and previous ideas and thinking and hoping to explore them to their full potential.
Our innovation festival is all about ideas. And we know that the best ideas come from diversity.
Whether that’s diverse people, diverse opinions, diverse beliefs.
So we’re reaching out to EVERYONE to come and be a part of this year’s festival.
The best successes stem from a place of collaboration, so we’re casting the net far and wide.
Every year, I have higher hopes for brilliant solutions than I did the year before.
And this year is no different – so here’s hoping that this year’s theme guides us towards the best festival outcomes yet.
Because, although we want each festival to be fun and entertaining, the outcomes for our customers are the real reason we do what we do.
So, please join us on the 12-15th of July at Newcastle Racecourse and be a part of something incredibly special.
I can’t wait to see you all there.
Nigel Watson