Designing remarkable experiences

From using psychology to create spaces that encourage scientific exploration to designing an iconic late night culture crawl and developing inclusive experiences for all writers - our panel will be discussing how they’re designing experiences that stand out. From creating expectation and shaping the experience to creating memories that can be shared – they’ll cover it all.

About our speakers

Claire Malcolm MBE

Chief Executive of New Writing North

Claire Malcolm MBE is the Chief Executive of New Writing North where she oversees a wide range of talent and community development programmes alongside prizes, festivals and events. She is leading the capital development of a new centre for writing and publishing in Newcastle. For NWN she leads the company’s external partnerships with industry and was part of the team that launched the MA in Publishing with Hachette UK and the Sounds Good audio studio. She created the national working class writers project A Writing Chance with Michael Sheen and is publisher of The Bee, a new magazine edited by Richard Benson with whom she co-hosts The Working Class Library podcast. She is one of the Bookseller’s 150 people influencing publishing.

An experienced non-executive director and trustee Claire currently serves on the board of English Pen, the Community Foundation North East and the Deborah Rogers Foundation and is a member of the UK Council of Creative UK. She holds an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Durham University and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Matt Forster

Strategic Communications Director, Gardiner Richardson

Matt is strategic communications director at brand communications agency Gardiner Richardson, where he uses the fundamentals of storytelling to bring life to brands and brands to life. He has built a career around story, from working a patch as a cub reporter to developing strategy for brands around the world.

Sheryl McGregor

Communications & Development Manager, North East Museums

Sheryl has over 25 years' experience promoting some of the North East's most loved attractions. In her role as Communications & Development Manager for North East Museums she leads on marketing and communications for 12 (soon to be 13) venues, which collectively attract over 800,000 visits a year. She also leads on fundraising for North East Museums, which raises over £1m a year to support its mission driven work. Sheryl is the Project Manager for The Late Shows, Newcastle Gateshead’s annual late night, city-wide cultural event, featuring over 60 venues and attracting around 30,000 visits. She’s also Chair of the Steering Group for the North East Family Arts Network which promotes family inclusion in the cultural sector.

Sheryl McGregor

Head of Development and Partnerships at Centre for Life

Andy Lloyd is Head of Development and Partnerships at Centre for Life, the award winning visitor attraction and science hub. At Life he’s led the development of exhibitions and galleries, the experiment, brain and space zones and making studios. With 30 years’ experience, he’s an expert on techniques to stimulate creative play, specific behaviours and thought-processes through interactive exhibits, rather than information delivery. He leads the centre's participation in research activity around Informal Science Learning, Design and Creativity as well as fundraising and partnerships. He was part of the team that developed an MSc course in Public Engagement with Science and is a Clore and Noyce Leadership Institute Fellow.

About the venue

You can find further details about this venue here.