The Sandwiches Finally Come Out at PICNIC '06

Bas Verhart and Marleen Stikker, Co-Founders of the Cross Media Week Foundation and initiators of PICNIC ’06, briefed the press Wednesday lunchtime on the whys, the whats and the wherefores of this much-anticipated conference.

Marleen opened by pointing out that PICNIC ’06 was a new idea; it was only a year ago they presented it to the city of Amsterdam. “We wanted to so something with the potential of this city to highlight internationally what is happening here and to bring people to the city to make new partnerships and projects together,” she said.

The organisers are expecting up to 5,000 people over the next three days, both for the official conference and the many other partner events running concurrently. Like the Edinburgh Festival perhaps, the ‘PICNIC Fringe’ is already nearly as big as the main event. There is also a large and growing public programme – and this is how it should be, pointed out Marleen, since the public are increasingly producers themselves.

For the media professionals, there are workshops, panels and pitching opportunities, and lots to do at night (all night, if they’re so inclined), with art, events, clubbing and after parties planned for the next three evenings.

Bas outlined the main themes that will be covered for the rest of the week, but not before pointing out what an amazing job everyone involved had done in such a short space of time. ”We had no money and no speakers as of April 1, but we had the venue and everything already booked, and I have to thank Monique van Dusseldorp for her help in getting the ball rolling.” He pronounced himself amazed at how powerful the ‘friend of a friend of a friend’ – in other words, social networks can be.

“The central theme will be the ‘celebration of genius’; as we see more and more convergence between films, TV, games and mobile media, there are new formats and intellectual properties that are being delivered across different media. How is all this connected?

“That is something we hope to learn more about in the coming days from our the key speakers – at the latest count there were 70 arriving.” Themes that will be covered include social media, attention, virtual worlds, digital moviemaking, the confluence of science, technology and art, what we can expect to see in the near future, and the many creative challenges that we can anticipate. “We have a lot of ‘poster children’ coming who can illuminate us about these issues,” said Bas.

Bas pointed out that thanks to the partnerships PICNIC had forged, the event is already “budget-neutral”. Service partners have worked pro bono, network partners have chipped in to make the event work.

Bas and Marleen finished up by highlighting some of the great night events planned for the next three evenings, from hip hop with Ghost Faced Killah (of the Wu Tang Clan), to film director Peter Greenaway doing his live image mixing. “Try not to get lost,” was his advice.

PICNIC ’06 Marketing Director Deborah Carter filled in for an absent Jochem de Jong from MTV Networks Benelux, who was called away at the last minute. Deborah mentioned MTV’s Digital Scout initiative that is launched at PICNIC ’06. This talent incubation contest will award 10,000 euros to the winning cross media idea. See www.digitalscout.nl for details.

PICNIC aims to be an annual event. The city has signed on, along with several of the partners, for the next five years at least. “It has been hard organising everything on top of our day jobs, but we are confident we have the organisation in place now to carry this on to the future,” said Bas.

Amsterdam’s Mayor Job Cohen acknowledges that the city has not focused enough in recent years on maintaining the traditional Amsterdam expertise in international networking (something the city became phenomenally wealthy with during the 16th and 17th centuries).

This is an idea that goes right to the top in the Netherlands; speakers for PICNIC ’06 were personally written too by the Dutch Prime Minister, and the network of Dutch embassies were instrumental – as were the personal networks of the partner companies and associations, and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs – in bringing the event to international attention.

In short, PICNIC ’06 really is an initiative that the city and key commercial players are getting behind, even though the main market to win over this first time is the domestic one. For the future, Bas promised much more attention to Asian creative cross media: expect this to feature more prominently in PICNIC ’07.

Bas mentioned how the Picnic Network, a social networking tool devoted to the conference, its speakers and delegates, is an open network which he hopes more and more of the world’s creative community will join in with.

Also at future PICNICs, expect to see partner cities represented. Amsterdam’s Mayor has already arranged to meet his Berlin counterpart to discuss cooperation, and New York’s Come Out and Play conference is looking at ways of cooperating next time. “We might even organise PICNICs in other cities,” said Bas.

Deborah added that ‘word on the digital street’ – or domestic and international blogs- has been extremely positive as well as a key aspect of the marketing campaign for PICNIC ’06.

So, how will the organisers deem the event a success or not? There will be formal evaluations sent out to all delegates and partners next Monday, the press will be monitored, blogs tracked, and so on. “Time will tell,” said Bas.

Comments

[Indira Reynaert]

Impressions of the firstday of PICNIC'06 described by Crossmedialog.nl: http://crossmediaforum.web-log.nl/crossmediaforum/2006/09/sfeer_impressie.html

[Jeroen Mirck]

And of course at Adfoblog.nl: http://blog.adformatie.nl/index.php/entries/picnic-ilse-viert-nieuwe-huisstijl-en-hiernl/

[Jonathan Marks]

I wish the people in charge of the publicity would be more realistic in their information to the press. First, the website talks about 1000 people coming to Picnic, then 3000 are coming, now the post above says 5000. No way were there 5000 people at the gas works last week. I know hype is important, but this is pure fantasy.

[Deborah Carter]

Hey Jonathan:

Thanks for your healthy dose of skepticism.

To clarify, when we refer to 5000 delegates attending PICNIC ’06 Cross Media Week, we are referring to attendance for the total event which included several elements: the conference, free workshops and presentations, parties such as the Hop, a live hip hop recording session and party sponsored by Heineken, and the PICNIC at Night public program for Amsterdam residents. Please note that several PICNIC '06 events took place in the evening and in locations other than the Westergasfabriek.

Cheers.

Deborah

[Jonathan Marks]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The Edinburgh fringe is indeed about the same size as the festival. The Picnic 06 fringe was 4-5 times the size of the conference at that rate. That makes it more than a fringe....

My impression was that Cross Media Week succeeded in its network function, but that next year more master classes and workshops would be better than too many presentations. And although the Amsterdam city council is fixed on the US West Coast as the major source of ideas, you need to scan developments in Scandinavia, Germany and France as well. Since China and South Korea are also huge markets for European content/software companies, more attention needs to be paid on building these contacts too. I know its easy to criticize...which is why this is meant to be positive suggestions for next year. Oh, and either call it Picnic 07 or Cross Media Week 07, but not both.