FUTUREWORLD COMES TO AN END

FUTUREWORLD, the touring technology exhibition from the BBC, supported by BT closed yesterday, after giving 756,000 people the chance to take a look into the future of broadcasting and telecommunications.
The predicted attendance when FutureWorld opened last February was a total of 450,000 visitors for the nine venues.
From it’s opening, when it broke records at Bradford’s national Museum of Photography, Film and Television, FutureWorld has exceeded all expectations. The exhibition combined the BBC’s vision of the converging worlds of television and telecommunications with an opportunity to meet television and radio stars and to see how some of the BBC’s biggest hits are made.
FutureWorld project Director David Vercoe said: “This has been a collaborative initiative between many different areas of BBC activity, both in London and BBC centres throughout the UK. FutureWorld’s success is largely due to enthusiasm and support of staff in all of those locations, and I am delighted and proud that this commitment has paid off in such a spectacular way.”
Following its initial success in Bradford, FutureWorld continued to thrill visitors in Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast, Portsmouth and Bristol where the exhibition programme closed after ten months on the road.
Tom Hamilton, FutureWorld Project Manager, BT, said: “BT has been delighted with the outstanding success of the FutureWorld event. It has given us the opportunity to bring the benefits of the FutureTalk Community Programme to people all over the country and has proved a wonderful complement to our TalkZone at the Millennium Dome.”