Scotland The Perfect Stage - 57

In brief… BT Sport Industry Awards 2020 Entries for the most prestigious commercial sports awards in Europe, the BT Sport Industry Awards are now open. The awards recognise the best- performing sports organisations, agencies and most influential individuals in the industry, across 18 categories including, ‘Event of the Year’. The deadline is Thursday 28 November . To enter go to sportindustry.biz/events/awards/2020 . Industry News National Events Funding R44 Applications are open for Round 44 of the National Events Programme. The Programme supports the development and growth of events and festivals that take place outside of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The deadline for applications is Friday 7 February 2020 for events taking place from August 2020 onwards . Guidelines are available on eventscotland.org/funding . S cotland’s events and festivals sector gathered at the world renowned Gleneagles Hotel on 9 September for the sixth National Events Conference. Hosted by Sports Broadcaster, Emma Dodds and held alongside The 2019 Solheim Cup, the conference delved into the theme of Embracing Innovation, Delivering Change . The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop MSP, welcomed the 200+ strong audience before handing over to Paul Bush OBE for his opening remarks. After reflecting on the industry’s success over the last 15 years, Paul emphasised the need for events to use a policy driven model to ensure areas such as health, education, transport and environmental sustainability are all part of an event’s overall aims and objectives going forward if we are to maintain our place on the world stage. The morning then moved on to the four keynote speakers, with CEO and President of Lift Philanthropy Partners, Bruce Dewar, showcasing how events can align with public policy to deliver wider societal change using the example of the work he’d done around the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Dr Beatriz Garcia, Director of Impacts 18 / European Capital of Culture Research, then presented research into the long-term legacy from Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture ten years on plus a wider understanding of the impact and cultural legacy around other major cultural events including the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. British Cycling’s Policy Manager, Nick Chamberlin, then discussed the unique opportunity available to Scotland ahead of the country hosting the inaugural 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships through his presentation Let’s change the way we move – Can Scotland go Dutch . The morning session concluded with an inspirational presentation from Helen Marriage MBE, Director of cultural arts and events charity, Artichoke, who shared her experience of working with artists to delivery largescale transformative events including their first product, The Sultan’s Elephant , a landmark piece of outdoor theatre in London, and Temple , a radical arts project in Derry-Londonderry. In the afternoon, delegates took part in a range of breakout sessions with sector experts covering up-to-the-minute topics, including Events and Sustainability , Visitor and Audience Trends , Broadcast Innovation and Data Driven Innovation . Delegates also had the chance to go on a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of The 2019 Solheim Cup as well as delve further into the morning’s presentations with a panel discussion with the keynote speakers. The day concluded with a special Q&A with the two Solheim Captains, Juli Inkster and Scotland’s own Catriona Matthew. 2019 National Events Conference 9 September @EventScotNews # perfectstage EventScotland eventscotland.org