Introduction:
When you think of Dorset what springs to mind? Rolling hills, farms, a stunning coastline, Thomas Hardy and a haven for tourists perhaps?
With no motorways, no cities and an, on average, older population, the chances are Dorset and digital are not two words you would naturally put together. But you would be wrong…
Dorset Council is making national and international waves in the world of digital and we have a strong and positive story to tell.
For two years running now, a significant way of telling those stories and showcasing Dorset’s innovative and ambitious vision, has been through our Festival of the Future.
In 2020, our first Festival of the Future, was entirely virtual due to the pandemic.
It included 60 online sessions covering a wide range of topics and was held during Digital Leaders week – attracting a large and varied audience.
Throughout that week we showcased the innovation taking place in Dorset, provided insight to the different aspects of digital, and discussed the future opportunities digital provides.
The festival was a huge success and we knew we wanted to do it again in 2021.
Our festival had generated an energy and excitement in what had been, and continues to be, difficult times.
It highlighted the role digital has in making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit, and how it will help with our recovery from the pandemic.
The word ‘digital’ can sometimes feel irrelevant to people. Our festivals focus on the future, to excite people, and engage as wide an audience as possible.
Digital Dorset is raising awareness through these festivals. Our work is crucial in developing and maintaining talent & skills, attracting investment, playing a crucial role in economic growth, and, most importantly, improving the lives and wellbeing of our residents.
#FutureFest21 – from online to hybrid
Our first festival had done the job we wanted – it raised awareness of our work and created excitement for the future.
But how could we match that, and even better it, for 2021?
The answer was something we never attempted before – a hybrid event.
With Covid restrictions easing, we seized the opportunity to take our festival on tour while not forgetting our hugely important online viewers.
We began the year brainstorming ideas with people from across the council and other organisations to help shape our hybrid event.
This year’s festival would be very different.
We decided to focus on a different topic area each day – business, education, tourism, countryside and health & social care – and broadcast from different locations across Dorset. The festival would be held over five days in October. 
It would mean marketing to different audiences, location scouting, script writing and perhaps the most testing of all, testing the tech!
None of us our film makers but it was fun learning lessons on the way!
And we got to test our new-found skills in a special trailer for #FutureFest21 – now viewed nearly 600 times on our YouTube channel.
We were now ready to go on tour to very different locations, each with their own unique challenges. Each day would also be broadcast live on YouTube, with live and virtual audiences invited to join in.
There was a lot of collaboration with people across all departments in the council and our guest speakers who were from a wide-range of organisations. We also had invaluable support from Bournemouth University’s media faculty and it was one their students who would do all our live broadcast filming.
We took inspiration from Countryfile and Top Gear – we wanted to involve and walk among our audiences, not talk at them. We would also play pre-recorded films as part of the viewing experience.
The Business of the Future Day was to be held at the Dorset Innovation Park in Winfrith, showcasing latest tech from both businesses and the MOD. Our broadcast would be live from a marquee outside and also inside the large and echoey Defence BattleLab.
Education of the Future was broadcast from Shaftesbury School’s very own ‘classroom of the future.’ The event would include live demonstrations of Virtual Reality (VR) tools used by students and a simultaneous interview with a VR expert in Australia.
For Tourism of the Future day we would visit one of Dorset’s most popular seaside locations, Lyme Regis. We would broadcast live from the promenade and have everything crossed the October weather would be kind to us (it ended up being perfect!)
Next up was Countryside of the Future Day, to be broadcast live from a barn in north Dorset. We knew the internet connection would be good, as it was on the grounds owned by the people behind Wessex Internet.
And finally, we would travel to the far east of the county at one the council’s award-winning visitor attractions, Moors Valley Country Park. This would be our final event, Health and Social Care of the Day, showing the tech that is helping people live independently for longer.
Feedback from #FutureFest21, what our viewers and guest speakers said:
Praise for our filming tech:
“The video production team that were at Dorset Innovation park is that an in-house team or external provider?”
“Are you the crew from warner brothers here filming?” (This came from someone in Lyme Regis where coincidentally Warner Brothers was also filming the new Willy Wonka film).
‘Interesting and informative, congrats on a professional looking production, seen worse on the TV.’
‘The production was FANTASTIC. Super impressive production, and presentation. It had a lovely friendly atmosphere, and a sense of a genuine connection and enjoyment of each other’s’ company between all the presenters. Brilliant … once again!’
All-round praise:
“Congratulations on a fantastic Festival of the Future 21 – so professional and brimming of ideas.”
“Good to see and celebrate Dorset Council leading by example in so many areas of experimental and innovative tech in a host of trial and routine settings. The appetite for radical, practical innovation is palpable and contagious across the team.”
“I was lucky enough to be asked to attend the Festival of the Future… We discussed technology in the morning and climate change in the afternoon. It was a terrific day where I learnt a lot!”
We also had great feedback from our expert guest speakers:
“Really enjoyable to present and discuss something so essential.”
“Brilliant presentations on Health and Social Care tech. Listening to thought-provoking speakers (like Dame Philippa Russell) and seeing the wonderful tech team producing the show from Moors Valley.”
“I loved how inclusive it was: community, business and all levels of the council.”
We asked speakers what they learned from the festival. They told us:
“How important high-tech job creation is to Dorset.”
“How to create a live event, working with a range of presenters and people.”
“About the serious passion the council has in walking the talk of the vision of being a digital council and place.”
Outcomes in numbers:
- We broadcast nine livestreams over five days.
- Almost 450 people registered for the festival beforehand and 3,300 people have since engaged with all the content.
- The Digital Dorset YouTube subscribers more than doubled.
- BBC Radio Solent’s Dorset breakfast show broadcast live interviews and features every morning during the duration of the festival.
- Over 80% said they would sign up for the festival again and a similar number said they would recommend it to a friend.
- On average 46% of our audience watched the sessions from outside Dorset. This could help attract tech-focused people to live and work here.
- Nearly 600 views of the official Festival trailer (most popular video)
- 116% increase in YouTube subscribers and unique viewers
- Engagement up by 400% on social media
Lessons learned from #FutureFest21:
- The time spent learning and practicing the tech on location beforehand really paid off, along with the detailed scripts and site plans.
- Having movement in what you are watching worked really well (having experienced virtual calls for 18 months we found this was so much more engaging).
- The need to think carefully about how you look after your in-person and virtual audiences to support their different needs. A hybrid event is effectively organising two separate events simultaneously.
- 10/15-minute segments on the programme worked well, mixing pre-recorded and live material to enable transitions to new scenes etc.
- We need to allow for more rehearsal time with speakers to help with timings and the importance of the host to hold the event together.
- We also need to build in ‘down time’ for the crew as each day we were having to setup and tear down our set.
- People commented that they had learned about initiatives taking place in the council, about different areas of digital beyond their day job and how digital skills and technology can be used across different sectors.
- We had some suggestions on how we could do things differently in future. One person said: “Although the different themed days were great, it would be good to get people out of their silos and learn about what other sectors are doing as it could spark ideas and collaboration.”
- Another said it felt like we were just promoting Dorset Council in general, which was good, but our aims were to showcase digital work across all over Dorset.
- We found that few people physically attended the events; although these numbers would have been affected by the pandemic and the fuel crisis, we will look at ways to make future festivals more appealing to attend in person.
Conclusion – is there a future for Festival of the Future?
In Digital Dorset we like to push the boundaries and in Festival of the Future we believe we are doing that.
We are not production or tv professionals and we had to step far out of our comfort zones.
There was the need to embrace the use of tech and create a ‘tech team’ to help create the ‘live from the festival experience’ we were after. This involved learning all about YouTube broadcasting, livestream analytics and retention rates.
But we knew we had made the right (giant) step from the very first day of #FutureFest21. There was an atmosphere from the off that we were breaking new ground and doing something truly unique.
Over the week we had to contend with on-off rainstorms, a very loud tin roof, limelight stealing seagulls and oh yeah… a fuel crisis on top of a global pandemic.
And we managed to keep our audience. Throughout the festival we had a very high retention rate for our online audience. 80-100% of viewers stayed to the end of the livestream each day and engaged with the livestream through chat.
Running the event was a huge learning experience for us all and one we are keen to relish again.
Yes, we have plenty of lessons to learn from #FutreFest21 but the overall positive outcomes from it makes us even more determined to plough ahead with #FutureFest22
You can watch the highlights from #FutureFest21 here: Festival of the Future 21 – Official Recap (HD) – YouTube
We believe a hybrid event is the way to continue but we need to look at ways at encouraging more people to join us in the live audience.
The event must continue, maintaining our focus that the festival is a showcase of everything that is happening at Dorset and not just at Dorset Council.
We also need to explore ideas on what the focus of the 2022 event should be.
Our journey to #FutureFest22 is about to get underway again, starting by engaging our stakeholders for their ideas, as we want this to be everybody’s festival.
The ever-increasing reliance on digital and the huge beneficial impact it can have on people and the economy demonstrates to us that the show will and must go on.
I have worked in communications for 25 years, first as a journalist and then in public and private sector public relations. From Southampton originally, I have lived in beautiful Dorset for the last two decades. My passion for Dorset has also turned into a passion for landscape photography. My other great loves are my family and Southampton Football Club.