SHIFTING THE PERCEPTION OF THE GOLD COAST

A NEW event set to launch at Surfers Paradise next month is promising to disrupt the way the city goes about its business.

The Big Blue Sky festival will kick off at the Q1 on Thursday 5 November, with a number of local and international innovators focused on giving the Gold Coast a new lease on life as a capital of intelligence, sustainability and vision.

Lou McGregor (pictured), co-founder of Big Blue Sky, says the two day event will be an opportunity to begin changing the city's story, reflecting its new reality as a place for visionaries and thinkers.

"We have to shift the perception of the Gold Coast by moving our own narrative beyond stunning beaches to include the scientific research, the ground-breaking businesses, amazing creativity and so much else that's happening here," says McGregor.

"The city needs to be able to keep our smartest and most innovative people and be taken seriously as a world class city for living and working so we can attract visionaries."

A number of the world's brightest entrepreneurial minds will speak at the event including Mark Rowland CEO of Ventures in Las Vegas, Vicki Batten CEO of FSG Australia and Matt Desmier founder of Silicon Beach UK.

Big Blue Sky Co-Founder Christine McDougall says the speakers aim to highlight sustainable projects across a range of industries to be carried beyond the event itself.

"It's the opposite of a future that's dark and dystopian," says McDougall.

"It's all the things for sustainable thriving and we're actually managing to bring in the people who've built the models."

The event will begin at sunrise on the sands of Surfers Paradise, where local musicians and choreographed yoga artists will perform Florence and the Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.