In March Blick Studios asked me to run their successful annual Creative Camp. In previous years Creative Camp has taken an unconference format – this year we decided to have 3 creative industry lunches. Styled on conversation dinners, good food, lovely people and interesting speakers were key to making this event a success.

Copyright Simon Mills

Copyright Simon Mills

Event Blurb: “Blick Studios would like to invite you round for lunch. Not just any lunch, but one of four themed creative industries lunches. Good food, nice people, and an opportunity to meet others working in your field. We have styled these events on conversation dinners, so sign up, come round, find your name card at the table and get chatting to other creative professionals. After lunch listen to one of our invited speakers as they share their work and then if you like, take the opportunity to share your work with the group. So whether fashion, design, games or film are your thing we’ve got the perfect programme for you”.

These events were designed to be intimate with a capacity of 20 people at each lunch, attendees got a chance to chat with speakers, grab a cup of tea, eat some cake, and make new connections in a friendly atmosphere. Small events like this are a really good way to encourage even the quietest people to get involved in the conversation and exchange ideas. The feedback we received after the events was great, and I look forward to hosting similar events in the future.

Our Fashion Lunch was hosted by Taggled TV – a really exciting local tech start up who have developed a platform that supports video bloggers by allowing them to earn profits from click through sales driven by their posts.

Our Design Lunch was hosted by Get Invited – a local tech start up which provides a platform for event managers to quickly publish and manage event sales, designed to be quicker and simpler to use than eventbrite it is also the ticketing platform I used for the Creative Camp Lunches. Alongside a great platform – Get Invited comes with some really stellar customer support!

Our Film Lunch was hosted by Aislinn Clarke and Lisa Keogh two mid career film makers working in Belfast but increasingly attracting international attention.