JUNE | THE COLUMNISTS
Access’ regular
columnists talk
green pricing, art
critics and the
fundamentals...
Budgeting sustainability
Jonathan Emmins, founder,
Amplify Critical success
Josephine Burns, chair, Without
Walls Constant craving
Simeon Aldred, group creative
director, Vibration Group
With plastic pollution high on the
agenda, we’ve reached a tipping
point where everyone –including
brand experience agencies and their
clients – want to be sustainable.
With budgets under pressure, there
are cost-effi cient ways to be green.
By understanding a client’s
current and future needs, we
can build modular sets for re-use
further down the line - it’s how we
approached YouTube’s ‘We are the
Creators’ experience. Clever tech,
lighting and screens transform the
same build into diff erent canvases.
For Red Bull’s Future
Underground we created wildly
diff erent events for Charlie XCX,
Skepta and Section Boyz using the
same infrastructure. For Spotify’s
Justin Timberlake gig we mostly
hired, avoiding single-use.
If purchasing outright, items can
be donated afterwards. After last
year’s Soundcloud event, we gave
the wooden furniture to a local
community group.
And, when Converse’s Cons
project ended, we donated
everything we built to the local
community, including all the timber
to an urban re-generation project.
I’m told the Copeland gallery is still
using our infrastructure! So yes,
it can seem expensive to be green.
But, by putting a little more thought
into creative solutions, everyone
can win. A visionary teacher once taught
me about ‘critical studies’. The way
we understand art and culture is
complex, but always about debate
and meaning. Much of our AAA
world lives outside the academy,
living on the edge of what is judged
to be ‘art/culture’. Not in the spirit
of grumpiness, but more of enquiry,
let’s have a look at this.
In part, it’s provoked by the
termination of longstanding theatre
critic Lyn Gardner’s contract with
The Guardian where she was one of
the few to review outdoor arts.
Does work that happens at
(mostly) free outdoor festivals mean
it’s of less ‘value’? We could point
to the massive audiences who see
shows regardless of whether it had
a fi ve-star review because it is in a
place they know as home.
Data shows that outdoor
arts attracts an audience which
represents the population, showing
its capacity to reach people other
art forms rarely reach. Our
experience with Without Walls is
that mainstream reviews mostly
focus on the overall event, or on
large-scale work. But what about all
those other artists?
Of course, there’s social
media, but refl ection and critical
acknowledgement is vital to valuing
the artists whose work is in danger
of not being taken seriously. Do we
care? I think we should - must. I’m asked about Brexit almost
daily. How will it aff ect the the
pound’s value and will its pressures
impact international brands? To
be honest, I haven’t got a clue. Yet
one thing I do know- we’re in the
entertainment and leisure game!
Our businesses create venues,
experiences, and activities fl exible
enough to win long-term. Planning
1-3 years ahead and blowing in the
wind with the latest pop-up trend is
never going to work.
Instead, we believe in connecting
audiences through the most basic
human constants. Date night
is never going away. Families
spending aff ordable time together;
the cultural and creative aspirations
that run through us all; these will
stand the test of time, no matter
what our bank balance.
Be original and back yourself. Yet
always think back to those basic
human desires, and constants. If the
interaction and transaction you or
your client creates feeds into these,
you’ll weather almost any economic
wind.
Our ‘human-fi rst’ instinct has
allowed our company to fl ourish
and we’re about to announce two
large London venues with over
10,000-capacity across both. We
believe in the UK events industry.
The many operators, creatives
and agencies creating cultural
experiences will win-big