When someone mentions Scandinavia or the Nordic region we tend to think of stunning scenery of fjords, geysers, waterfalls, forests, snow covered wilderness or maybe Nordic noir literature and film, hygge, colourful sweaters and places that top international polls as the best and happiest places to live.  But maybe we should be considering visiting specifically to experience their contemporary culture?

So, with our Nordic partner Nordic Intercultural Creative Events (NICE), we have secured funding from NATA (North Atlantic Tourism Association) to visit Iceland and the Faroe Islands to start talks about the potential for cultural tourism.

Image: Ásmundarsafn (part of Reykjavík Art Museum)

In the first weekend of May, cultural organisations across Bristol and Bath offered free tickets to residents and invited them to ‘live like a tourist’. As part of our continuing work with Bristol & Bath Cultural Destinations Consortium, we used Culture Hosts, our digital collaboration platform, to gather event information from multiple partners and power listings on the Residents Weekend Website.

Culture Hosts is a well-established tool in Manchester’s cultural landscape, with more than 300 arts organisations and tourism businesses now using Culture Hosts to share their event listings and venue information. Culture Hosts has powered creativetourist.com for nine months but this is the first example of it being used to power event listings on another website – and the first time partners outside Greater Manchester have used it as a collaboration platform.

Culture Hosts will continue to play a key part in collaboration and discovery in Bristol and Bath, powering the soon-to-be-launched Explore More website, a new shared portal for arts and culture in the cities.

View CTConsults’ case study – Bristol and Bath – A tale of two cities

One-night, city-wide, social

Manchester After Hours is back: our interpretation of the national Museums at Night festival of lates takes place only one night each year, bringing unusual collaborations and stand-out events to venues across the city.

Perhaps you didn’t know that Creative Tourist does the fundraising, coordination, programming, marketing and PR – delivered by our crack team of staff and associates – Ben Williams, Rivca Burns, Dave Sedgwick and Rachel Furst. This year the project is supported by Transport for Greater Manchester who will run a late night shuttle bus between the venues.

Manchester After Hours is funded by Arts Council England.

It all takes place on Thursday 18 May and will include experimental electronic music in the city centre’s oldest building, DJs and visual artists programmed by cult online radio station NTS Radio in the stunning surrounds of Whitworth art gallery, spoken word in the beautifully restored house of one of Manchester’s most historic authors and much, much more. Here’s our guide to the night, from which you can piece together your own extraordinary, nocturnal journey.