By Ray Poynter

The Festival of NewMR has been bringing a combination of big names and new faces to global MR audiences since 2010, and the next Festival is 1-5 February.

The format of the Festival is online so that people who can’t attend face-to-face events can catch up with key market research presentations and discussions, and it has the added benefit of being free.

The format of the Festival also ensures that broadcasts take place across a variety of time zones to ensure that everybody should find there is something convenient for them.

This year the Festival comprises five sessions, spread over five days. The program is available here, but the key elements are:

• Atlantic Monday, 1 February, 10am New York/ 3pm London. Keynote presenter Leslie Townsend, founder of Kinesis and leading expert on mobile market research.
• APAC Tuesday, 2 February, 11am Tokyo/ 1pm Sydney. Keynote presenter is Shoba Prasad, a multi-award winner and expert in the fields of qualitative research and cross-cultural research.
• Americas Wednesday, 3 February, 10am Seattle/ 1pm New York. Keynote presenter Fiona Blades, founder of MESH and a truly innovative researcher.
• EMEA Thursday, 4 February, 1pm London/ 2pm Paris. Keynote presenter John Kearon, Chief Juicer at BrainJuicer, a true disruptor of ‘business as usual’.
• Futuring Friday, 5 February, 10am New York/ 3pm London. Greenbook’s Lenny Murphy and NewMR’s Ray Poynter team up to review the future of Market Research, along with a star-studded panel of guests.

Other highlights of the week include: case studies, a new model for brand tracking, better uses of video, an introduction to data visualization, applications for big data, data analytics, social media and immersive qual. See the whole program at http://newmr.org/events/2016/festival-of-newmr-2016/ and register now; it’s free!