As 2019 draws to an end, it is a good time for me to reflect on how the DIT team has worked with the UK’s brilliant experience providers and to look ahead at the key moments which will take place in 2020.
In the world of museums, we enjoyed another excellent Museums and Heritage Show in May and have booked our space for 2020. We are in the process of identifying overseas delegates to come to the show as our guests, and to meet the UK’s suppliers of products and services. In 2019, we were delighted to participate in the inaugural Connecting Culture event, created and staged by our colleagues at Experience UK. Connecting Culture was a nice mix of formal presentations and b2b mingling – and we look forward to the 2020 edition. Just a few days later, I was delighted to host a “Meet The Brits” party at a restaurant in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the evening before the American Alliance of Museums conference. It was a memorable evening, which allowed over 100 US and UK museum people getting to know each other over a drink. I’m already looking forward to San Francisco 2020.
At the Connecting Culture event, we launched our research into European museum spending plans over the coming decade and engaged Emily Smith to undertake a deep dive into the best prospects. Emily has made great progress and we plan to publish her findings – and work out a programme of activity to follow up these findings – in the New Year.
As ever, we worked with ALES-UK to arrange financial support for a number of UK companies taking space at the key IAAPA events in Paris, Shanghai and Orlando. In Paris, it was great to see Experience UK taking a stand and promoting a group of UK companies – I know there are plans to do something bigger and better in London next year. Our own DIT stand in Orlando was a huge success – and a tip of the hat to Rozmin, who did a fantastic job in recruiting some great companies and keeping them under a degree of control.
We dipped our toes into the world of experiential retail at the ICSC conference in Barcelona. It is clear that the retail sector and our experiential world will need to forge an alliance to improve the Customer Experience – but it is equally clear that the way in which we do this is not yet obvious. To help us probe this link further, we’ve engaged the author and experiential guru James Wallman (“Stuffocation” “Time And How To Spend It” – available from all good, and many not so good, booksellers) and I look forward to sharing his insights with you in the coming months.
One highlight of the year which didn’t happen was Business of Design Week in Hong Kong. Eight months of preparation – over 100 trade missioners, 50 speakers, a series of art installations – came to nothing when the HK Government postponed the event. Some shards survived, as part of the City Programme, and it was really great to see the digital art gallery created and installed – a really excellent project by Thursday Studios of Winchester- as well as a brilliant eco-garden created by Alan Lowry and his team at Environmental Street Furniture (ESF). The solar powered benches in particular were a great hit with Hong King’s highly connected young people.
Working on BODW provided me with a fascinating insight into the world of art installations and their role in place making. Something we will follow up next year.
Finally, some thanks. Firstly to Rozmin, my experiential partner in crime, without whom my work life would be waaay less rewarding. To Ian and the team at Experience UK for taking the concept to ever higher levels, to my colleagues Leila, Barrie and Graham who have done so much to inject our experience economy companies into the GCC while I’ve been obsessing about Hong Kong and to Terry at Simworx – our first experience economy Export Champion.
Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year to you all.
Richard Parry, Experience Economy Lead, UK Department for International Trade
