Festival as Lab (FAL15)

Call For Expressions of Interest 2015 Festival As Lab (FAL15) FutureEverything, 25­28 February 2015, Manchester UK Backgound FutureEverything is an innovation agency, that presents city data services, design for science, innovation events, advice and training, art commissions, and experiences and demonstration. Its festival is both a cultural event and research vehicle, for experimentation in methods and mechanisms for research and knowledge exchange around the emergence of a digital culture.

Call for Entries FutureEverything invites proposals for self­funded research and innovation projects to be presented as a part of the 20th anniversary edition of FutureEverything festival, which takes place 26­28 February 2015.

Successful applicants will be given a unique opportunity to stage co­design, prototyping and public trials, engaging festival visitors and/or residents of Manchester, at festival venues and/or across the city of Manchester. Projects will showcase ground­breaking concepts, products and services to commercial enterprise and the international design and innovation community.

A physical FAL15 hub with WiFI and AV equipment will be provided for presentation of data, workshops and public engagement at The Shed, hosted in partnership with MMU Digital Innovation. Projects must launch and remain live over the festival period. Projects could be live place for those days, or run over a longer period.

The opportunity will appeal to research teams, design and new product development companies, innovation agencies, and commercial enterprises. We encourage applications from consortia and organisations with established commercial partnerships.

FAL15 is presented in association with ENoLL as a part of FutureEverything 2015 FAL15 Themes There is a particular interest in city sensing projects and trials. One option here would be to combine a number of sensing projects into a sensing lab. More widely, themes of relevance include: ● ● ● ● ●

Smart Cities. Future Internet. Internet of Things.

Smart Mobility, Wayfinding and Transport Innovation.

Digital Social Innovation. Civic Participation. e­Government.

City Sensing. Citizen Observatories. Data Services.

Creative Media. Experience. Personalisation. Identity.

Each Festival As Lab project could relate to some aspect of the festival experience or journey, digitally enabled urban innovation, city infrastructure or it could be presented as a standalone festival project/event, which engages participants around a theme.

Festival As Lab ­ Characteristics Festivals as agile research and development environments for real­world rapid prototyping, open innovation and user­led design. ● Experts and passionate amateurs coming together to imagine and experience the future. ● City as playspace ­ People and businesses play and experiment with the infrastructure of a city. ● These experiments devise and test innovations, and generate visibility and engagement.

Festival As Lab and Living Lab ­ Differentiation

FestivalAsLab

LivingLab

pop­up, light touch

embedded, longitudinal

staged, extraordinary

real world, ordinary

wide engagement

deep engagement

Why Festivals? ● Involve large numbers of people taking part in experimental, playful activity. ● Participatory spaces that nurture play, risk and community creation. ● Enable the free circulation of people and ideas, connecting people at different levels, from grassroots to government and business leaders.

FAL15 Criteria A living lab project involving co­design and/or participatory research that: ● Undertakes research in the wild, in a living, urban environment. Takes research out of the laboratory to test ideas and prototypes with festival attendees and/or Manchester residents. ● Generates visibility and engagement around a theme. ● Uses creativity or design methods to engage users or an audience in a novel way.

● Involves motivation or reward. This can be intrinsic (the experience is gamified, artistic, playful, entertaining or thought provoking) and/or extrinsic (an incentive, such as entry into a competition). ● Uses the festival environment to extract learnings be they through participation, user testing, workshops, interviewing, ethnography, and other methods.

FutureEverything is Responsible for ● Registering projects and providing event coordination and administration. ● Venue and event support: a base for projects, a Festival As Lab workshop. ● Promoting the Festival As Lab projects as a whole and the participating research institutes to its global community and within Manchester. ● Comms support including editing, proofing, refining copy. ● Guidance (through written and/or verbal feedback) on how to: identify research themes and questions of relevance to festival attendees and/or Manchester residents; create an engaging experience; engage a wide audience/user group; communicate the project to non­scientists.

The Partner is Responsible for ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Design, delivery and evaluation of the Festival As Lab project, within terms defined by FE. Meeting all deadlines and milestones agreed with FE. Creation and delivery of communication and interpretation materials.

A dedicated project contact and lead.

Appropriate crediting of project contributors in marketing and publications.

FutureEverything direct costs and their own project costs inc. travel and accomm.

Optional: Contribution to a revised edition of the Festival As Lab Toolkit.

Communications Benefits FutureEverything offer FAL15 partners and external organisations a variety of sponsorship options, ranging from banner based exposure to festival footfall, branding in promotional materials, and an opportunity to inform the programme itself by hosting curated and branded events throughout the festival. Communications benefits for all participating projects/teams include: ● Agreed passes for all festival events. ● Branding on all marketing materials. ● Promotion through FutureEverything online marketing activity, including newsletter (8,000), Facebook (8,300), Twitter (14,000).

Pricing

For applicants wishing to run a project to the specification detailed above, guidance indicates that a fundamental event package will cost €5500* (NB: Indicative cost), although applicants may wish to explore higher scope / cost projects, so it is recommended applicants provide a cost breakdown.

In understanding that applicants and their partners may have additional requirements, FutureEverything can offer bespoke innovation events, enhanced festival profile and curatorial expertise in response to a specific project brief. Applicants wishing to explore additional scope should indicate so in their expression of interest.

Applicants should signal clearly any interest in commissioning an artist or designer to contribute to their project (eg. visualisation, participation). The festival plays host to an international community of artists, critical thinkers, and innovators, therein providing a unique platform for project commissions, visualisations and participation.

Entry Format Please send a 4 page application detailing your proposed Festival As Lab project and supporting information to include project partners.

Portfolios and supplementary visual resources are encouraged, although will not be considered without a detailed written application.

Submission Email: tom.rowlands@futureeverything.org Submission Deadline: 5pm, 27th October 2014

Timeline 30 September 2014 ­ Call for proposals open 27 October 2014 ­ Deadline for entries 27 ­ 7 November 2014 ­ Interviews (Skype/Hangout for Non­UK applicants) 22 November 2014 ­ Submission of revised and full project plan 5 December 2014 ­ Final decisions, sign off and contracting, delivery of project copy, images, materials 12 December 2014 Festival As Lab press release and announcement January 2015 Project team available for project communication and development February 2015 Launch and delivery