Have you got something great to shout about? We’re looking for proposals for breakout sessions for next year’s AIM Conference at Ushaw Historic House and Gardens, and Beamish in County Durham on 10 and 11 June.
What we’re looking for
Always a popular part of our conference schedule, breakout sessions run for 40 minutes and focus on pragmatic advice and ideas from people who have been through it. We are keen to programme as much of these slots as possible from enthusiastic speakers with something to share amongst yourselves, the AIM community.
For the 2026 event, we will be talking about beautiful business models – what works, what flourishing museums have in common, and how to generate income and control costs to manage as an independent museum. Breakouts will reflect on the following broad themes:
- Relevance for resilience – developing a fundable offer e.g. through modernising interpretation and display, capital transformation, community outreach, new stories/new audiences, data and insight, digital offer
- Building the brand – turning organisational ancestry, legacy assets (collections and buildings), and own stories into unique and placemaking visitor offer
- Entrepreneurialism – running effective (charitable) businesses, developing a commercial mindset, taking risks, strategy and vision, and futureproofing and risk management
The primary audience at conference is AIM members. These range from large museums or heritage organisations to those that are entirely volunteer run. The audience will include people from heritage attractions, sites and industrial heritage groups as well as museums, and trustees and volunteers as well as museum professionals.
Top tips on presentations at AIM conference
- AIM conference delegates are open to debate and new ideas but want this linked to practical and useful suggestions. Case studies, ‘top tips’, and thoughtfulness about how what worked for your museum or heritage organisation could be applied within other organisations are always welcome.
- Speakers who give ideas and suggestions (particularly ones that are low cost or easy to implement) which delegates can take away and use in their organisations, are always popular. Our hope is for every attendee at conference to be able to go back into their museum the following week with concrete ideas they can start implementing. Our proposal form will ask you what takeaways your audience will get from the session.
- Ideas which draw on your own experience or perspectives or which are from outside the museum sector or outside the UK are greatly appreciated.
- Willingness to share the sometimes-difficult realities and how these are coped with, as well as the successes, is always very well received.
- Attendees appreciate interactivity in breakout sessions.
- We like to emphasise the ‘in the room’ experience, plus in recent years tech has occasionally been a little unreliable on the day – we therefore suggest video should be used sparingly in presentations, if at all.
Proposals from Associate Suppliers or other businesses must come in partnership with a named museum or heritage organisation who can bring their perspective to the session. We have found it needs to be clear to AIM’s audiences what they will learn from suppliers and that they won’t just hear a sales pitch.
How to make a submission
AIM Conference 2026 is taking place on Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 June 2026, and we will consider a proposal to be a commitment to attending if selected. Please note two speakers per session are usually entitled to attend the day they are speaking for free but will need to cover costs for any additional time at the conference and travel/expenses, as well as the organisation purchasing a ticket for any additional speakers (speakers are eligible for bursaries for AIM conference, which will be available in early 2026 when tickets go on sale).
To propose a session, please fill out the form at the link below by Wednesday 24 September at 5pm.
If you’ve got any questions, or want to speak to the team before making your submission, get in touch with us via [email protected].
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