Boxing fresh
SEEMONSTER
Martin Green CBE , chief creative officer of the Government ’ s £ 120m UNBOXED : Creativity in the UK festival tells Access about the plans for the event , the many challenges involved , and how it will continue to have a hugely positive impact on the UK ’ s live events industry for years to come .
Words : Christopher Barrett
Being both the chief creative officer of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 and Unboxed , Martin Green is , like many event professionals , a tad busy this year but he is confident both events will have a long-lasting impact on the UK ’ s events industry .
With a career that has involved heading up numerous landmark events , not least the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics Games , Green is passionate about the UK ’ s live events industry being world-leading and that events such as Unboxed have a legacy that includes attracting new generations of events professionals to the industry .
The UK Government ’ s £ 120m nationwide Unboxed festival commenced on 1 March with a spectacular sound and light show in the grounds of an 850-year-old Scottish abbey .
The free open-air event , About Us , was created by 59 Productions , The Poetry Society and Stemettes . It is the first of a series of 10 events to be staged throughout the UK until October .
Unboxed has previously been referred to as the Festival of Brexit , has there been a conscious decision to try and distance the event from Brexit ? We wanted to steer clear of Brexit . The project has got two KPIs ; to celebrate creativity and bring people together – so if you start having any sort of conversation about Brexit you have lost half your audience . It never has been a Brexit event . You only have to take one look at the programme to see that it ’ s absolutely not what many people were saying it was . It is what we said it would be ; which is a really innovative UK-wide celebration of creativity across science , technology , engineering , arts and maths . It ’ s nice now that people can see it in action and make up their own minds .
How does working on Unboxed compare to other events you have worked on such as Olympic ceremonies , and what attracted you to the project ? The attraction was to work with significant resources and opportunities but in a different way – the Olympic ceremonies were in a capital city stadium and the majority of people were seeing it via the TV broadcast . With Unboxed , the endeavour was to get it out of the big cities and get it right across the UK . I really love taking work to where people are . On top of that , it ’ s 10 years since those ceremonies and we have new technologies at our fingertips and new broadcasting opportunities . Unboxed is
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