The beleaguered Unboxed arts and science festival in the UK is under new leadership. Martin Green, the festival’s chief creative officer, was appointed by the BBC last month to run the Eurovision song contest in Liverpool next May; Phil Batty, Unboxed’s executive director, will oversee its closing stages.
When Unboxed was first announced in 2018, it was dubbed the Festival of Brexit and met with scepticism. In late 2020, applicants were invited to form Creative Teams and apply to a £3.6m-funded research and development programme for the initiative. Thirty teams were then selected and awarded £100,000 each to originate ideas. During the last phase, ten large-scale projects were commissioned, forming part of the final festival programme.
An Unboxed spokesperson says that Green was “always going to leave at the point that all the projects were up and running”. Vikki Heywood, chair of Unboxed, says in a statement: "We are grateful to Martin for his invaluable expertise, hard work and contribution to Unboxed: Creativity in the UK and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games over more than three years, as chief creative officer of both organisations.”
Crucially Unboxed audience figures will be published 22 November. “The figure will be a healthy number and well into the millions. We are currently verifying figures across the programme and naturally keen not to confuse things by issuing piecemeal,” adds the spokesperson.
Earlier this year, the political journal The House reported that Unboxed had so far attracted 238,000 visitors, but the spokesperson refutes the figure, saying: “Numbers reported by The House… reflect attendance at only eight of the 112 physical locations within the programme. The Unboxed programme has been enjoyed by millions in over 100 towns, cities and villages and across digital and broadcast platforms and employed thousands of creatives around the UK.”
Earlier this year, a UK Parliamentary committee criticised Unboxed however, calling the £120m governmental investment in the initiative “an irresponsible use of public money”. A report published on 16 March by the Commons cross-party Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) also warned that it is “far from clear that [Unboxed] will deliver a return on investment.” The DCMS disagreed with the committee’s findings.
The Unboxed live programme continues until 20 November with digital projects continuing online. See Monster, a public art installation housed on a decommissioned North Sea oil rig located in the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare, has been extended until 20 November while About Us, an immersive lightshow, is coming to the Tower of London (16-19 November).