Summary
I created and led the first ever Interactive Media Showcase - a student-led event, giving students a platform to show their work.
The main part of this showcase was a 'gala' style event, where we had an evening which local businesses, friends and family were invited to, to see the Interactive Media work.
Creation
The event started as just an idea to give students a platform for their work, which I thought my peers truly deserved. I then worked closely with friends and IM staff to make the idea a reality.
We decided that the event should run over the weekend to give student work the chance to be viewed by as many people as possible. We also initially thought about trying to get speakers in for the weekend.
Design
With members of the team working on a social media presence and marketing the event, myself and one of the other team members worked on the branding of the event. We wanted it to feel familiar and technology based, yet also make it seem new and cutting edge while trying to work with the IM in some way.
What we resulted with was a modern logo - capturing the technology feel we were going for. We also worked IM into our branding, with phrases including the logo such as, "im a digital artist". We felt this worked well and helped succinctly explain what the event would feature.
Development
I presented the event at local events such as Tech York and reachded out to local businesses to perssonally invite them to the event. We created awards for the best projects and assembled a team of judges including Heather Niven, the head of Science City York, as well as Ann Gurnell, the head of the Guild of Media Arts for York.
We had 32 student submissions for the event and sold out 120 tickets for the Friday night gala event.
Conclusion
The event was a huge success, with the gala event selling out and attendance, combined with that over the weekend, ended up at around 300. We were lucky enough to have people from local businesses such as Creative England and Charles Cecil from Revolution Games in attendance.
It was a truly rewarding experience to give students the platform and to see others enjoy and celebrate all of the hard work on display. To help create this event and work with a fantastic team was one of the most rewarding experiences of my time at University.