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BEYOND Conference: The R&D for the Creative Industries - Connection Research - Academia & Business Innovation

Susan Hayes Culleton • Nov 16, 2021

I was recently MC for the BEYOND conference in Belfast, focusing on the creative industries in the UK and far beyond.


The BEYOND 2021 Conference took place in Belfast Titanic Centre over two days Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st October 2021


The BEYOND 2021 Conference looked at how the Creative Industries are forming the heart of new vibrant cultural and creative economies.

The conference explored the role of creativity and creative tech in informing and navigating new places. There is a big space opening for the Creative Industries to lead the way with mission-driven research and innovation to reimagine, reinvent and reinvigorate place.


It was planned as a hybrid conference, BEYOND 2021 offered a live and catch-up sessions online or in person, as delegates and speakers were welcomed in Belfast to experience a bespoke programme of activities, with location-based immersive experiences, networking, receptions and more, plus of course lots of fine Northern Irish hospitality.

Here is a summary of insights:
 

1. Every £1 generated in the creative industries leads to 50p in another sector of the economy.

2. We're going to have lots of jobs that we can't easily label yet i.e. a "digital artist", but this is super exciting and dynamic.

3. A hybrid conference can definitely work and the BEYOND team know how to make that happen very well by treating the two audiences with separate attention, giving them the capability to interact with the other and being creative with time, geography and interaction.

4. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have got lots and LOTS of use cases today. It's no longer futuristic but very real and accessible for people who work in the creative industries, public engagement, museums and hospitality, education and many more.

5. Many mega-trends are affecting the core of the sector - technology, talent pipeline, sustainability, blockchain, communities, work-from-anywhere and others.

6. Innovation is critical - we need to quantify scope for failure, be more open about what we learn along the way, adopt more agile practises and appreciate that failure in one initiative can be converted into turbo-boosted learning for a new one. Today’s risk is not taking enough risk.

7. Our sense of place is changing - through remote working, digital communities, lockdowns and travel restrictions, new generations, augmented reality, transport and connectivity. Let's think about the places where we build our lifestyles and societies as well as how we want them to adapt to us.

8. Check out the on-demand video series of the conference - it's freely available now and well worth spending time absorbing the content at: https://beyondconference.org/b21/ondemand/

Thank you so much Tara Solesbury, Sam Michel, Eliza Solesbury, Anna Herzberg, Tom Hamilton, Andrew Chitty for the opportunity to work with you and the wonderful and kind Nuala Toman for introducing us.


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