Logo for 7x7 Ideas FourmWho says that Welling­ton is devoid of intel­lec­tu­al debate? Cer­tain­ly not the peo­ple behind the 7x7 Ideas Forums, who organ­ise reg­u­lar pre­sen­ta­tions where 7 peo­ple each get 7 min­utes to pro­mote, demon­strate and dis­cuss their ideas. There’s no indi­ca­tion on their web­site of who will be speak­ing dur­ing this series, but the pre­vi­ous series (some videos of which are avail­able at R2) includ­ed a per­for­mance poet, a car­ni­val entre­peneur, an adven­tur­er, a con­sti­tu­tion­al lawyer and a grav­i­ta­tion the­o­rist. So, just the usu­al crowd, then.

The new series kicks off tomor­row (Thurs­day 6th April) at 6pm. They used to be held in (e)-vision, but that venue has now been divid­ed into an archi­tec­t’s stu­dio, art gallery and fash­ion bou­tique, so this series will be at the Ilott The­atre in the Town Hall. Tomor­row’s event has the theme “Win­ning the world from Welling­ton”, which could (and no doubt will) be inter­pret­ed in many dif­fer­ent ways. I’d be there myself, if it was­n’t for the fact that I’m speak­ing at anoth­er sem­i­nar that evening. With any luck, after the 7x7 forum fin­ish­es at 7:30, the adja­cent cafés will be abuzz with ideas, debate and metaphor­i­cal dol­phin-dis­sec­tion.