Curated Place and SPECTRA win Scottish Festival of the Year 2016

The core Curated Place crew headed to Glasgow last week for The Drum Scottish Event Awards to hear that SPECTRA 2016 – Aberdeen’s spectacular festival of light – won the Festival of the Year Award 2016. Naturally it made for some spectacular celebrating.

Curated Place have strategically developed the festival with Aberdeen City Council since 2014 seeing the four-night event in early February pair leading international artists with Scottish collaborators to create the North-east’s most successful event. Shaping the festival as a city centre destination event bringing together installations, music, sound art, performance and public workshops the whole team has demonstrated that our approach to planning, curating, delivery and team development archers multiple partners brings success to our host cities across cultural strategy, night-time economy and long term creative economy growth.

In only its third year SPECTRA was nominated in the categories for People’s Choice Event of the Year; Cultural Event of the Year; Large Event of the Year and Festival of the Year, and was up against long-established events including the Turner Prize; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Underbelly Circus Hub); The Enchanted Forrest; the Glasgow International Comedy Festival; and The Royal Highland Show.

Now a firm fixture on Aberdeen’s cultural calendar, this year’s SPECTRA was enjoyed by more than 35,000 visitors over the course of the festival. Union Terrace Gardens, St Nicholas Kirk, Marischal College and Seventeen were transformed with spectacular interactive and innovative light installations created by international artists and local talent. Alongside we have developed a series of participatory workshops involving Aberdeen schools as well as professional development for local artists and students at the Anatomy Rooms and Seventeen.

Leader of Aberdeen City Council, Councillor Jenny Laing said: “It’s fantastic. We wanted SPECTRA to be a signature cultural event for the region and further afield, which would showcase what Aberdeen can offer as a contemporary city with a strong events programme combined with cultural heritage.

"To win this award against such strong competition is a wonderful accolade and testament to our vision. It also underlines the hard work of our staff and our arts partner Curated Place in delivering such a unique festival for the people of Aberdeen and beyond. My congratulations go to all involved."

Deputy Leader of Aberdeen City Council, Councillor Marie Boulton said: “Although still relatively young as a festival, SPECTRA 2016 was extremely popular and we are delighted that it has been embraced by our audiences.

"I would like to congratulate the teams responsible for delivering such a successful festival and look forward to seeing what SPECTRA 2017 can deliver."

Andy Brydon, Director of Curated Place said:

"We are extremely proud to be winners in the Scottish Event awards as it recognises the hard work, creativity and vision of both Curated Place’s team and our close collaborations with Aberdeen City Council’s culture and events teams. With next year’s festival in development this acknowledgement has fired us up to deliver a bigger and better festival than ever before."

The partnership with the council goes from strength to strength and having secured EU funding to support six international residencies, Creative Scotland funding for new production and investment from the business community through Aberdeen Inspired SPECTRA will return to Aberdeen from the 9-12th February 2017 bigger and better than ever before with announcements of our artists coming soon.