Public Events
We offer interactive tents and activities at public events – bringing our programmes to mainstream gatherings.
Interactive tent at the Great Exhibition Road Festival
Exploring the role of Prince Albert’s inspirational event in Hyde Park in 1851 and the extraordinary cultural quarter of Exhibition Road today. We were challenged to tell this incredible story in a fresh and dynamic way that conveyed the wonder of the original exhibition and its relevance today.
The solution: to 3D print a scale model of Crystal Palace in front of a massive brightbox print of the building from 1851 and with an app allowing visitors to view stereoscopic 3D images of the exhibition. Royal Commission Award Holders were on hand to engage with the public and interpret the innovations on display and the history.
Most visitors had never seen 3D printing and were fascinated by the opportunity to see new technology applied. The 1851der glasses were a massive hit – allowing visitors to ‘step inside’ the exhibition building in 3D 168 years earlier.
Hundreds of people attended the Festival and visited the tent, and Big Ideas has been recommissioned to produce the tent in 2022.
Big Ideas at public events
During the First World War Centenary we were invited to join a series of Greater London Authority events in Trafalgar Square including Diwali, Africa in the Square, Eid and Vaisakhi to engage Londoners in the Unremembered Project. We also joined Eid celebrations in Leicester, Glasgow and Bradford to involve British Muslim communities in the WW1 centenary with caligraphy activities for the names of Egyptian Labour Corps service personnel.
The Unremembered Names photographs gave visitors a simple and meaningful call to action and the thousands of photographs of the public commemorating individuals who lost their lives in service speak for themselves.
We informed the activity with interpretation through staff and volunteers, information boards, and opportunities to write messages and create wreaths which were sent to New Delhi for commemoration there.
The RAF100 team also invited us to provide commemoration activities at airshows across the UK. Again we were able to offer unique commemoration activities connected to local heritage and contributing to the paper planes display in Hendon.
German Parliament event with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron
In 2018 we worked with the Premier League and the German War Graves Commission (VDK) to produce a series of readings by young Premier League football players at the German Parliament in Berlin for a special commemoration event between France, Germany and the UK. This included wraparound education activity produced and delivered by Big Ideas for the young players and their peers in Belgium, France and Germany. Big Ideas has organised and facilitated pop up education events and trips internationally for the Premier League for a number of years.
Transforming commemoration in India and the UK
Big Ideas delivers with stakeholders internationally. In 2016 Big Ideas contributed to a special India Remembers event attended by the Duke of Cambridge at India Gate in New Delhi. Later that year we worked with the British High Commission in New Delhi to hold a midnight commemoration service in the Delhi War Cemetery marking the centenary of the battle of the Somme. A musical performance at the event was recorded by the BBC and Broadcast in Breakfast on Radio 3 the following morning.
In 2017 Big Ideas ran a unique live public event that brought together India Gate in New Delhi with the Arch of Remembrance in Leicester – delivered for the High Commission of India in the UK and the British High Commission in India. The 75th anniversary of the End of the War in the East was hosted in the digital space as an India Remembers event with USI of India and the British High Commission. Attendees contributed messages which were presented in a special book for Remembrance in November when a series of WW2 veterans interviews were released and showcased on BBC Breakfast.