Bracknell Forest Giants, Bracknell – Bracknell Forest Council and The Lexicon Bracknell

The Lexicon partnered with Bracknell Forest Council to create a town-centre event to encourage visitors back to the town centre.

Where is the project located?
The Lexicon, Bracknell, RG12 1AP
 
Who is the developer/client of the project?
Bracknell Forest Council / The Lexicon Bracknell
 

For decades, residents of Bracknell had been promised a new town centre, with the original centre being grey, uninviting, concrete biased and with a dwindling retail mix. 

Opening in September 2017, The Lexicon, was the first ‘new town’ centre to be demolished and rebuilt, with a £240 million investment creating one million square feet of new retail and leisure space.

As a town centre, rather than a shopping centre, The Lexicon, was launched with the overriding vision to create a welcoming and contemporary town centre with local community at the heart. A place for people to shop, relax and enjoy.

It had started to deliver on that vision, moving from 255th to 26th in the 2019 Trevor Wood report, with a host of successful community events taking place in the 30 months before Covid 19, with its complex challenges, hit the country in 2020.

In the summer of 2021, as retail and restaurants were once more able to open their doors, The Lexicon in partnership with Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) decided to create a town centre re-activation event to encourage visitors back to the town centre.

The partners wanted the event to be something unique to Bracknell, with a theme that would appeal to the borough’s diverse population, an event that the people of Bracknell could identify with, containing both fun and educational elements.

With forest making up almost 40% of the borough’s landscape, a ten-day education and celebration programme was created entitled Bracknell Forest Giants.
 
Tell us what you did and how the project, event or installation enlivened the place in a creative way?

At the centre of Bracknell Forest Giants event were three interactive ginormous tree giants, the tallest of which stood 6.5 metres tall, that were visiting the town centre having strolled to town from the surrounding forest. 

Towering above visitors, each Bracknell Forest Giant told a magical story about the preservation and conservation of the amazing forests surrounding the town.

Wise Woodland, the tallest giant, was the guardian of the forest’s history, Lady Greenwood, the borough’s own Mother Earth, looked after the smallest insect to the largest tree, and the third, Little Acorn, was a playful young sapling, encouraging forest adventures and fun.

An empty shop unit was transformed into the Forest Friends’ Den, a theatre show, where children took the Forest Friends pledge to protect the forest. We ran SEND sessions at the beginning of the day with lower numbers and gentler sound and lighting in the show.

There was also a host of free pop-up activities to entertain and enthral visitors throughout the duration of the event. These included storytelling, an acoustic band singing the songs written for each giant, tales and trails, a forest footprint competition, a falconry demonstration, an animatronic owl and the Knowledge Nest providing factual information about the event and supporting information from other partners.

The event was also used as the platform by BFC to launch the Bracknell Forest Guardian legacy programme – a tree planting programme for local schools.
 
Please share any data or figures that support your entry, for example increased footfall, happiness surveys, event attendance and/or observed changes in behaviour. 

For a community that had spent much of the previous 18 months in various stages of lockdown, the Bracknell Forest Giants event, provided a spectacular reason to visit the town centre, meeting up with friends again and importantly supporting the beleaguered retailers and restaurants. 

Bracknell Forest Giants delivered:

On-site Activations: More than 120,000 physical interactions, using the buttons, and AR surrounding the Bracknell Forest Giants

Event website: 464,634 page views, an increase in traffic of 153 per cent when compared to 2019.

Social Media: The social media engagement rate was 14x above the average click rate. BFC’s Facebook page reached 318k with no angry/dislike responses. The Lexicon’s social pages delivered a record 1.5 million reach during the event period.

Public Relations: PR created 53 articles with an opportunity to see (OTS) of £4.5m+ including regional television pieces on Meridian and BBC South. Wise Woodland made the front page of the business section of The Telegraph, with further coverage in The Guardian and The i.

Footfall and Spend: There was an increase in footfall of 23.7% vs 2020 overall. Retailers reported significant uplift on sales in 2019.

The Forest Friends’ Den theatre show sold out, raising more than £7,000 for local charities.

Customer Survey: Customer surveys were carried out throughout the event. First time visitors were asked whether the event gave a favourable impression. The event received a net promoter score of 89%.
 
Did the project make a positive social and environmental contribution? Please provide any evidence or data to support this. 

Perhaps the best way to assess the positive social impact is to browse the many positive comments received from the local community, some of which are noted below. 

“My favourite part of this incredible collaboration is the sense of inclusion for special education needs and disability…as a special needs mum, this means a lot to me.”

“We came on Tuesday and were here for five hours with the live birds… we convinced our neighbours to come back with us! What you are doing is amazing!”

“I work with a lot of children and families who don’t have the money to spend on events, and are scared to leave the house after COVID. So giving them something to take their mind off of that, for free, has done wonders. I’ve come four times now with different clients each time.”

“We’ve come from an hour away just to see this - and it didn’t disappoint.”

In terms of environmental impact, within the Knowledge Nest, a reimagined empty unit, visitors heard more about the wonderful forest and green spaces, through a series of short videos highlighting how visitors could help preserve the forest for future generations, and how to get involved through programmes such as the Bracknell Forest Guardian scheme.

The social and economic impact of the amazing forest surrounding the town centre was evident across all elements of the event.