The Story 2016
Ben Payne, Co-Director reports on the upcoming The Story.
Co-Director Ben Payne (Image: Tom Oldham)
If you haven’t heard of The Story, you should really think about going.
Calling it a conference about storytelling would be doing it a disservice. The brainchild of its founder, Matt Locke, The Story it is only really a conference in that it gathers together about 500 people who are interested and passionate about talking and finding out about stories.
It is only really about storytelling if you include the huge range of ways that we now tell stories. For that reason, those 500 attendees will include games designers, directors, designers, techies, marketing and PR agents, journalists, researchers and performers, as well as writers.
At the Ministry, we have been very lucky to be invited each year since 2011 to open The Story. Having only 20-minutes to speak about their chosen subject or to tell their story, keeps each speaker on their toes. It is this punchiness that keeps the event moving and it is the diversity that keeps it constantly surprising.
Some of our highlights over the years include:
- meeting the brilliant performer Bryony Kimmings who described how she and her niece created Catherine Bennett, ‘the credible, likeable pop star’, and ended up on Radio1
- MP Tom Watson talking about the murky machinations of his relationship with Rupert Murdoch and Newscorp.
As well as speaking, the Ministry also receive a portion of the price of each ticket sold and we are massively appreciative of Matt’s continued support since the early days. This year, Matt’s generosity has been extended further to also donate to our Ministry inspired partner project in his hometown of Brighton, Little Green Pig.
Matt is now posting some of the many highlights from past outings of The Story online, so you can get a gist of what goes on here, better still, see if you can snaffle the last remaining tickets for this week. If so, we’ll see you there!
