Anew festival that helps us put a face on the future

THERE’S a new kind of festival taking place at the RDS this weekend which is encouraging us to embrace what’s coming.

The Future will feature a number of stages where innovators, creatives and entrepreneurs will give audiences an insight into what’s happening in the wider world.

The idea for the festival was formed by Richard Seabrooke as a reaction to all the bad news he was seeing on a day to day basis.

‘I got a little bit frustrated that the first 40% of my news intake was bad news from nukes to climate change,’ he says. ‘And having done more reading and keeping up to date with other elements of business and activity, you actually find there are people trying to solve the plastic crisis, there are people trying to connect communities, there are people putting art out there.

‘I was going to lots of events internationally and I noticed that not a lot of them were talking about the future, a lot of the people were talking retrospectively, which in turn felt a little bit like the stuff I could find on the internet.

‘So my idea was to set up something where people were talking more about what’s coming. The idea was to bring together four stages of amazing innovators to present alongside each other in parallel.

‘People collaborate across media, across disciplines and I wanted to get their visions of the future, what was ahead of us really, rather than getting sucked into the eternally depressing news about global warming and the end of the world.

‘We wanted people who were making a positive impact across various different sectors, industries and categories.’

There are four stages, The Future stage where innovators in their particular field including Adrian Newey from Red Bull Formula One will talk about what they are doing. The Studio stage looks at the future of work and how we will manage together. The Vision stage features everyone from street artists to fashion and interior designers, while stage four will be a space for discussion on everything that has featured.

‘There are people innovating in every single field and the opportunities are endless,’ Richard says. ‘Everyone has a part to play in the future, it’s just a matter of people arming themselves with the correct information so they can go and get it.’ The Future runs today and tomorrow at the RDS. Tickets from €99 from ticketmaster.ie