¿De dónde provienen las especias que tanto nos gustan?

Jade Coles is a freelance Event Curator and Cultural Programmes Director who, over the past ten years, has built a client list which includes Soho House and The Wing. Through her work designing cultural programmes and events, she aims to promote emerging artists and foster creative communities across London.

How did you get into event curation?

My background is in fine art. I started out studying art and my bachelors was in sound, video and performance, which is quite an odd, niche thing to take, but now I see them as the key elements of the event.

Then, I went on to be in a band and that’s how I got into events production. When we went to all these festivals that gave me a real insight into all the different roles and people that it takes to build amazing experiences like festivals.

How do you design your experiences?

Because of my background, I’m always coming from a fine art framework. There’s the general inspiration you get from absorbing culture.

And then from a programming perspective — because so much of what I do is about interesting people — I love talking to people, listening to their stories, finding out what are they interested in? What’s the project they’re trying to build or business they’re trying to start? That filters in my head and I write that down.

I have a Google spreadsheet of just random thoughts but also Instagram is great for that. If someone’s got an interesting Instagram post, I save it to a collection so I can whistle-stop through it later. It’s a bit chaotic but it works for how my brain works.

And then, if I’m developing the event proposition, I’ll go back and look at the brief, I’ll set out a number of event pillars or event hierarchies, depending on what the project is for, and then I ideate what the key topics are. So if a space comes to me and says we’re all about wellness and business, I’ll ideate within those categories. Then I’ll think about who is going to fill in the content. You put those two things together you’ve got the bones of your events programme.

When you’re designing an event do you aim to inspire the people attending?

I think «inspire» is a very big word. It’s used in lots of different contexts. When you think about inspiration, I probably think more about words like “excitement”. How do I bring a sense of excitement into the event that I’m creating? That might mean creating artificial risk, or you might aim to inspire by giving people the tools to learn or do something new.

And then, if I’m developing the event proposition, I’ll go back and look at the brief, I’ll set out a number of event pillars or event hierarchies, depending on what the project is for, and then I ideate what the key topics are. So if a space comes to me and says we’re all about wellness and business, I’ll ideate within those categories. Then I’ll think about who is going to fill in the content. You put those two things together you’ve got the bones of your events programme.

• And then, if I’m developing the event proposition, I’ll go back and look at the brief, I’ll set out a number of event pillars or event hierarchies, depending on what the project is for, and then I ideate what the key topics are.
• So if a space comes to me and says we’re all about wellness and business, I’ll ideate within those categories. Then I’ll think about who is going to fill in the content. You put those two things together you’ve got the bones of your events programme.

1. And then, if I’m developing the event proposition, I’ll go back and look at the brief, I’ll set out a number of event pillars or event hierarchies, depending on what the project is for, and then I ideate what the key topics are.
2. So if a space comes to me and says we’re all about wellness and business, I’ll ideate within those categories. Then I’ll think about who is going to fill in the content. You put those two things together you’ve got the bones of your events programme.

And then, if I’m developing the event proposition, I’ll go back and look at the brief, I’ll set out a number of event pillars or event hierarchies, depending on what the project is for, and then I ideate what the key topics are. So if a space comes to me and says we’re all about wellness and business, I’ll ideate within those categories. Then I’ll think about who is going to fill in the content. You put those two things together you’ve got the bones of your events programme.