Alternative thinking series will return to next year's Festival

SussexWorld

Alternative thinking was a key strand at this year's Festival of Chichester with a series of events offering a mini festival within the festival, under the title Metanoia.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Hours Editor at Sussex Newspapers and Chairman

00:06of the Festival of Chichester. Now at this year's Festival of Chichester, we've had a lovely series

00:11of events, seven events in total, which is pretty impressive for a first outing from Ben Williams

00:16under the title Metanoia. And the great thing is, Ben, you are hugely encouraged by The Sound

00:21of Things, by how that first series went. And already, you're promising me, you'll be back

00:27and you'll be doing another series of Metanoia, maybe in a different format, but you will

00:31be back to do more Metanoia Mark II at next year's Festival of Chichester, which is great

00:37news. So first, just remind us of the definition of Metanoia, and then tell me, you know, why

00:43you're pleased with the way it went, why you think it went well, generally.

00:47Okay, yes. So, hi Phil, thanks very much. Metanoia, the dictionary definition of it is that it

00:57means a fundamental change in mindset. And it was originally used for religious epiphanies,

01:05but now it's used for any kind of shift in a way of thinking. And that was really the

01:12kind of the premise for these events. So the talks that we had were all from people who've

01:20got different points of view that I just wanted to start a discussion around. And the music,

01:28again, it's kind of not mainstream, but it's got a kind of a deeper principle at play.

01:37Yeah. And I've always loved within our festival, having festivals within the festival. And yours

01:42was such a coherent series, wasn't it? Under that rubric, it really sat together well, didn't

01:49it? Okay, thank you. Well, it's nice to hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I felt as though there was

01:54a coherence. I'm glad that came across.

01:57Absolutely. And pretty good audiences, enough to make you think that next year, you'll be

02:01back.

02:03Absolutely, absolutely. So I think that in terms of audiences, it's kind of quality over quantity,

02:14as far as I'm concerned. And the people who did find it, really loved it. So they really

02:20got it.

02:21Well, absolutely. The context is, this is the first go, isn't it? So you will build the

02:25name for the brand.

02:27Yeah.

02:28Next year, it's bound to be even stronger, isn't it?

02:31Yes.

02:31You can add the quantity to the quality next year.

02:34That's what we want, ideally, is quality and quantity. A huge quantity of quality people.

02:42Yeah. So you will start thinking about who you can have back? Are there some that you'd

02:47have back again? Or were you thinking a completely new line-up? What would you do, ideally?

02:51Everyone who came wanted to come back as well. So the speakers and the DJs, the artists, they

03:05all wanted to come back. And we started to talk about them coming back in a bigger way

03:11as well. And some of the talks were maybe too short, and you could extend them. And maybe

03:18maybe some kind of, you know, some of them were talking about courses in what they were

03:22talking about.

03:23Well, you've got plenty of time to think it all through, haven't you? But the main thing

03:27is you've made a really excellent start. And we're so pleased at the festival that you brought

03:32Metanoia to us. And even more pleased that you're going to bring it back next year. Ben,

03:37congratulations on the whole thing, and lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

03:40Thank you. Thank you, Phil. Appreciate it.

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