A look at FUTR

Dedicated to the dynamic worlds of business, entertainment, and innovation, FUTR World is a global first.

Immersive, interactive, and featuring some of the world’s biggest brands and business leaders, the inaugural edition is taking place at Manarat Al Saadiyat from December 9 to 11.

We chose to launch this new and exciting event in Abu Dhabi because we view the city as the innovative hub of the Middle East. It leads the way in retail, community and sustainable innovation, and it’s the driving force behind the efforts to meet the region’s sustainable development goals.

Of course, Dubai hosts hundreds of successful events and the UAE as a whole is the most advanced country in the GCC in terms of entertainment. But we specifically wanted to hold FUTR World in Abu Dhabi and we decided that way back before the pandemic hit. Since then, we’ve been working with the Abu Dhabi Government, Retail Abu Dhabi and a number of other Abu Dhabi companies on creating this amazing show.

Indeed, the incredible way that Abu Dhabi managed the pandemic, further confirmed that we had made the right choice. It quietly and humbly went about managing and controlling the crisis and bringing back events totally safely.

The idea for FUTR World was born from FUTR Summit, the business event that has been running for the last six years in major cities like London, New York, Singapore and Sydney. Focused around the retail, marketing and commerce sectors, it’s normally attended by around 3,000 business people.

FUTR Summit showcases the latest trends and technologies for each sector in engaging and immersive ways. Our exhibition stands would have roundtables, we’d organise breakfast, lunch and dinner dinners webinars, and we came up with all sorts of imaginative methods that didn’t just tell people about thought leadership but let them experience it for themselves.

For instance, IT consultancy Accenture set up an activation that invited senior management figures to walk through an imagined transactional store and explore the current leading retail trends. It was all so interesting and eye opening.

So, along with the Abu Dhabi Government, we decided to create a new event that also included consumers as well as business professionals. We wanted to invite the next generation of consumers to explore the world’s future trends, technologies, and insights and, most importantly, do it in an immersive and interactive way.

As FUTR Summit has such a large global community, it was actually quite easy for us to attract a line-up of the world’s biggest CEOS, performers, brands and artists. I rang up all our partners to tell them about the idea for FUTR World and they were all so excited by the concept, and thrilled to hear that it would be taking place in Abu Dhabi.

We then spent a long-time consulting with the Abu Dhabi Government about how we could run the event safely, but still include all the interactive and immerse elements that we wanted. If we couldn’t make it as engaging as we wanted it to be, we knew that there was no point in hosting it at all. A virtual version was suggested to us but we dismissed the idea instantly and instead waited until we could do it live and in person.

FUTR World is a multi-sensory voyage that involves smell, taste and touch. It’s an emotional journey that people can really feel. After all, next gen consumers want amazing experiences and treasured moments in time, they’re not looking for anything else. That’s what brings loyalty these days.

I want to urge every CMO within the region to attend FUTR World and witness our amazing line up of talks, performances and brand activations.

Our incredible guest speakers feature Martin Ward, CEO and Managing Director of Harrods, Andy Lightfoot, CEO of apothecary Space NK, Venetia Archer, CEO and Founder of London beauty service Ruuby and Cyrus Alavi, CEO of sustainable water brand NÜWATER.

There’s also the chance to experience numerous brands that have never before appeared in the region. This includes fitness brands T/ALA and SHREDDY, gym-wear label Gymshark, London-based food platform MOB Kitchen, zero-emission solutions specialists Arrival and many more.

The talks and workshops will cover a range of fascinating subjects, too. ‘Resonating with the youth, subcultures and getting people to give a damn about you – the future of consumers’, ‘A new era for marketplaces & platform technology – the future of commerce’ and ‘Inspiring innovation: ideas are welcome, execution is worshipped – the future of entrepreneurship’, are just a few of the many interesting and enlightening topics covered.

You can view the full line-up and programme at futrworld.com and I can’t wait to see you all there.