London 2012: June events calendar and diary - Daily Telegraph
David Nash at Kew, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens; June 9 – April 14 2013
The works of sculptor David Nash will go on display at Kew Gardens this month, with sculptures, installations, drawings and film in place in the open air, garden glasshouses and on-site exhibition spaces. Nash is renowned for his work with wood and the exhibition will see the artist work on a ‘wood quarry’ in Kew, where he will create new pieces for the exhibition using trees from Kew Gardens that have reached the end of their natural life.
Bt Artbox Project, throughout London; June 18 – July 16
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s traditional red telephone box is an icon of British design but this month it gets a temporary revamp from select artists and designers. Keith Tyson, Romero Britto, Zandra Rhodes and Giles Deacon are among those selected to participate in the BT Artbox Project, which will see them decorate a full-size, fibreglass replica of the K6 telephone kiosk, which will then be displayed in different areas of the city.
Codebreaker - Alan Turing's life and legacy, Science Museum; June 21 – June 2013
One hundred years after his birth, Alan Turing is celebrated with a free year-long exhibition at the Science Museum. Examining his life and legacy, the exhibition considers his contribution to computer science – which still holds influence today – and remembers his wartime codebreaking successes. The exhibition will display one of the most comprehensive collections of Turing-related artefacts, including machines he developed and worked on.
BP Portrait Award 2012, National Portrait Gallery; June 21 – September 23
The National Portrait Gallery follows its exceptionally popular Lucian Freud exhibition with the BP Portrait Award. This is the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, with a £25,000 prize going to the work judged to best showcase contemporary portrait-painting technique. Admittance is free.
New London theatre and performing arts openings
London 2012 Festival, throughout London and nationally; June 21 – September 9
The London 2012 Festival is the cultural complement to the London 2012 Olympic Games and the culmination of the four-year Cultural Olympiad. Throughout the capital, and throughout the country, thousands of events will take place to ensure millions of people will have the opportunity to participate in this exceptional summer. Highlights in London include the BT River of Music festival, which will see act including the Scissor Sisters and the Noisettes perform at six separate Thames-side locations, and an enhanced West End LIVE in Trafalgar Square which will this year see the casts from every one of London’s West End musicals perform for free. You can see coverage of the festival as it progresses on our London 2012 Festival portal.
Southbank Centre Summer Festival; June 1 – September 9
The Southbank Centre has another summer’s entertainment sorted with its Festival of the World. With a focus on learning, the event seeks to showcase how art can transform lives with a programme that’s challenging, moving and engaging. Highlights include Bryn Terfel’s four-day celebration of Welsh culture and Unlimited, the largest series of commissions by disabled and deaf artists ever undertaken in the UK.
New London restaurant and bar openings
Chase and Country Tails Terrace, Harvey Nichols; June 4 - July 15
Hopes are high for a good summer and if clement weather does grace us then the Chase and Country Tails Terrace at Fifth Floor Harvey Nichols is going to be popular. Created by Chase Distillery, the terrace’s traditional English-countryside look is inspired by the Herefordshire countryside where the company is based. More a bar space that serves food than a restaurant, the terrace will serve drinks featuring Chase spirits and mini tasting dishes created by Fifth Floor restaurant executive chef Jonas Karlsson.
Beard to Tail pop-up restaurant, 24 Chart Street; June 12-15
Shoreditch cocktail bar Callooh Callay tries its hand at the food trade with the four-day opening of the Beard to Tail pop-up restaurant. The meat-heavy menu is set to feature plenty of hearty, homely dishes with mains priced at £8-£13. The space will accommodate only 35 covers. Annoyingly bookings aren’t taken but you can expect the cocktail list to provide compensation. The pop-up precedes the opening of a permanent Beart to Tail restaurant, currently set for September 2012.
The Cube by Electrolux, Southbank Centre; June 1 – September 30
A Room for London, the boat-shaped, one-bedroom hotel, is perched atop the Queen Elizabeth Hall already; now The Cube by Electrolux plonks itself above the adjacent Royal Festival Hall. A pop-up restaurant sponsored by the appliances manufacturer, it will feature dishes created by Michelin-starred chefs stationed across the British Isles, including Sat Bains, Claude Bosi and Tom Kitchin. Guests who dine here will be served at least five courses with matching wines, and only 18 people will be accommodated at a time. Lunch at the Cube by Electrolux costs £175 per person, while dinner costs £215. Bookings can be made through the website.
Eat London afternoon tea, Wyndham Grand; June 1-30
Chocolatier Damian Allsop newly created Eat London chocolate bars are influenced by London’s cultural diversity (coffee and banana crunch are used for the Brixton bar; ginger, peanut and soy for China Town) and to celebrate their launch the Wyndham Grand London Chelsea Harbour hotel has launched an Eat London afternoon tea for the month. The tea features traditional teatime treats that have again been adapted to represent different parts of the city and costs £28 per person. On June 9, Allsop will be present at the hotel to run a two-hour chocolate masterclass – that costs £40 per person.
Afternoon Rock tea, W London hotel; June 1 onwards
The W London hotel is now serving Afternoon Rock tea, its variant of traditional afternoon tea. Launched to coincide with this summer’s Jubilee and Olympic festivities, the tea celebrates all things British with a menu that’s inspired by great British rock bands. Served on a three-tier stand made from original vinyl records, items served are named after rock albums and songs. London’s Burning, for example, is a chocolate pudding and hazelnut crunch; Cherry Bomb is a chocolate, mascarpone and cherry dessert inspired by The Runaways’ 1976 song.
Other London openings
ZSL London Zoo Lates, London Zoo; June 1 – July 27
From now until the end of July, London Zoo will be open late on Fridays and the venue is offering a packed Zoo Lates programme of events to celebrate. Running from 6pm-10pm the adults-only event will feature live comedy and cabaret performances on site, a silent disco (loud music disturbs the animals) and, of course, the opportunity to observe the hundreds of different animal species resident in the zoo.
Paris or London? Where is the best place to start… up? - The Independent Blogs
Acting almost as the closing event of Digital Shoreditch festival, the Startup Caravan, sponsored by The Bridge and Frog Valley, embodies the tremendous diversity of the European digital community and the unquenchable thirst for sharing and learning from one another.
Started at the Innovation Warehouse in trendy Smithfields at 9 am, the Caravan finished in the wee hours of the following morning at the fancy Google Campus and was clearly a success.
Twenty entrepreneurs were successively fed information on London’s attractiveness for starting up a tech business. They were exposed to the possible barriers to investment for a French startup and some of them even had the occasion to pitch at Digital Shoreditch festival in the afternoon.
Not surprisingly, the three pillars of any entrepreneurial ecosystem did not fail to be mentioned during the discussions. Rooted in the financial power of the City, the fast growing number of tech startups is also due to the extraordinary density of lawyers and of high-tech and prestigious universities. All of the above most naturally foster and cater for the creation and high concentration of incubators and pre-incubator structures.
From an investor perspective, the questions asked were more pressing and down to earth:
What is the best way for a French start-up to raise money, or be attractive for UK-based investors?
The key takeaways were leaning towards the harsh side for the French wannabe entrepreneurs.
“French startups are still mainly focused on local markets, with rarely international or global ambition, making them not necessarily competitive for us,” noted Sitar Tell from Doughty Hanson Technology.
“We are mostly looking for fast exportable products or business models and some of what we see are too French-specific, ’’ echoed Sean Seton-Rogers from Pro-Founder.
“The current tax benefit given to investors in UK startups tends to bias the investment decision, for an equally good idea and an equally good team, most would choose to benefit from the Enterprise Investment Scheme. The best ways of tapping into the rich business angel network still remains to consider creating a holding structure in the UK,” reflected one informal investor.
These are interesting comments that went to the core of the difference in perception of entrepreneurship between the French attitude of ‘play it safe, see if it works first’— because if you fail you will clearly be stigmatized – and the English mentality of ‘go big or go home’, similar to that in the US.
On the entrepreneurs’ side, the response was clearly enthusiastic.
“London has such an energetic vibe, a lot is happening, and things often move faster,” commented Tobias Nevin from Everfeel – an innovative online gaming startup offering a new real-time social gaming experience, based on immersive 3D role plays with voice dialogue between players.
“’For me, London is a symbol of gutsy finance, where appetite for ambition and risk is more on the agenda; London is also a clear pathway to North America, with the traditional ties to Silicon Valley, as well as a springboard for global growth in general,” he added.
“Coming to London is a breath of fresh air; an energetic fix. It is also a great networking platform for second round of funding needs, in a funding market embracing more disruptive type of products,” smiled Antoine Sakho from Skimm! – a mobile payment app start-up.
The recent change of Government in France was also on the agenda. “Entrepreneurship and the need to push for it, was never really a founding theme for any of the presidential candidates,” reflected Sakho, while Nevin echoed that “it would be a stretch in the France system where companies are classed and often prioritised by size to orient the future growth of the economy towards ‘small and unknown’ startups.”
“And you know, yes Fleur Pellerin is the newly appointed minister of SMEs and innovation, but by the time she has founded a committee, agreed on rules and found a portfolio of companies with something ‘tangible’ to show, it is not going to help young startups. They are operating in the here and now, with immediate cash issues and at time limited track-records,” reflected Sakho.
This is the core of the issue for young French tech entrepreneurs.
They do not feel supported in their own country, and might be considered as ‘discretionary’ investment for UK investors already cherry picking in the rich London based startups ecosystem.
Regardless of a highly virtual and connected world, the ‘tyranny of distance’ is still pretty much alive when it comes to investment. What if the real value of an initiative like the Caravan was awareness-building within the investment community for it to become truly global ?
Tagged in: caravan, digital shoreditch, entrepreneurship, start-up, startups, tech
0 Responses to "London 2012: June events calendar and diary - Daily Telegraph"
Post a Comment