NEXT - Nordic EXceptional Trendshops – held annually in Aarhus don’t just deal with past happenings combined with insights into latest trends. Oh no. NEXT events are mindboosters whose attendees are invited into the minds of today’s most daring thinkers on Digital, Food, Green, Design, and Health to find out what will happen in the not too distant future.
 
NEXT events are intentionally held in Aarhus, a city whose convention agency - VisitAarhus Convention Bureau - works under the motto “Meet with Aarhus - Danish for Progress”, whose core knowledge competences corresponds with the five before mentioned modes, and with the youngest population in Denmark. Its a perfect match…

NEXT was first held in Aarhus in 2004 and since then it has grown into an international – and acclaimed – landmark. It is an event that covers a sharp edge across industries and organisations with relevance for forward-facing and curious professionals who are interested in getting a unique chance to get close to some of today’s greatest minds.

The event is perceived a vessel bound for the new, the odd angled and the unpredictable; A home ground for exceptional minds and their inventions. NEXT is part conference, part exhibition, part cultural and part social event. Each year, almost two handfuls of the most daunting international minds share their knowledge and twisted ideas of what will shape tomorrow.

This August, speakers from AT&T, Ferrari, Institute for the Future, Google, and Youtube (to name a few) made their way to NEXT in Aarhus to discuss innovation, next practice and the overall theme “Beautiful Mistakes”.

NEXT 2011 took place during the legendary annual Aarhus Festival in late August. Both events shared the same theme (i.e. “Beautiful Mistakes”) and took place whilst the city was bustling with life and creativity and so, in the words of two NEXT attendees:

"NEXT was a unique and exciting experience. Aarhus is an excellent place to bring people together to talk about the frontiers of knowledge; not too big and not too small, and that's a great description of NEXT. I met many stimulating (and useful!) people and heard some amazing talks”.

(Source: Brian Cox, British BBC TV-Host, Celebrity and Chief Scientist at CERN/Large Hadron Collidor, www.nextaarhus.com)  

“Definitely being at Next 2011 was worthy. We enjoyed the conferences and we didn’t miss the opportunity of hanging around at the Aarhus Festival that is being celebrated this week too. We were looking forward to meeting the most daring thinkers in Aarhus and without realizing, now we are dreaming of the NEXT 2012. Yes, fast, very fast passed the time of enjoying brilliant conferences!”

(Source: Begoña Pecharromán Ferrer, FARAPI, http://evidentis.org/2011/09/02/next-2011-in-aarhus-denmark/)