eurobest 2017 Kicks Off in London

eurobest, the Festival of European creativity has opened today in London’s Victoria House Basement for three days of inspiration and creativity from some of Europe's brightest creative minds.

The Festival aims to bring audacious, experimental and independent European thinking to London. This year attendees will hear from creative guru and coffee entrepreneur Nils Leonard, award-winning poet Inua Ellams, artist Rebecca Ivatts and BORN N BREAD , a creative collective of friends focussing on thrifty creativity.

Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, Justine Simons, said: “I’m delighted to welcome eurobest to London, celebrating the best of European creativity. London is the most international city, with more than 300 languages spoken here every day and we are open to people, ideas and talent from around the world. The brilliant Glass Award will honour those who celebrate diversity, and with more than 100 creative experts and thousands of pieces of work from across the continent, I know that this year’s eurobest will be one of the best yet.”

Following on from the huge success of the Glass Lion at Cannes Lions over the past three years, eurobest this year introduced Glass: The Award for Change for work that celebrates culture-shifting creativity. Eligible entries include work which sets out to positively impact ingrained gender inequality, imbalance or injustice. Glass award entry fees will be donated to UN Women and the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media for programmes designed to encourage a "more gender-neutral media landscape".

Presiding over the inaugural Glass jury Chaka Sobhani, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett, UK commented “The Glass Award is the highest accolade in terms of our ability as an industry to genuinely impact culture and change the world in some meaningful way. Gender inequality, injustice and prejudice have always been amongst the world’s greatest problems and seem even more pertinent in these turbulent times we live in.”

With entries from 36 countries, including a first entry from San Marino the first shortlists have been announced for Creative Data, Design, Direct, Entertainment, Media, Outdoor, PR, Promo & Activation and Radio & Audio and are available to view on the website here. 

Summarising what visitors could expect this year, Jose Papa, Managing Director, Cannes Lions said, “Coming to London, we knew this edition of eurobest had to be extra special. The sheer variety of work entered into the Festival this year is fantastic and by focussing on European creativity, eurobest can always be relied upon to uncover some truly inspirational creative ideas that don’t always get a platform at other award shows. Add to this a speaker programme that features insightful and compelling stories of creativity in action, and eurobest 2018 in London promises to be three days of learning and celebration in the most creative city in the world.”

The winners of this year’s eurobest awards will be celebrated in Bloomsbury Ballroom on 30 November.