“It’s not just a bunch of people talking about big ideas, because that actually will happen in the run-up to the festival,” a source said. “And obviously, there’ll be a robust speaking program and debates about what the future should be.”
There are also the gigantic rooms outfitted with top-of-the-line gear. The room that usually houses Art Basel Unlimited on the Messeplatz, a 170,000-square-foot space the size of multiple airport hangars, could be the site of tech presentations that, frankly, are far from possible anywhere in Aspen.
“We can use that to actually demonstrate things at scale, because we have these huge—you’ve been to Art Basel—these amazing exhibition halls that you can do all kinds of crazy things in,” a source said.
It’ll be a completely separate enterprise, with a different mission, from Art Basel, but the city’s art infrastructure will very much play a part. And it’s the only ideas festival that insiders compared to the Venice Biennale. I mentioned the peace talks. It was stressed to me that Basel has long been a place where world leaders feel comfortable hashing out ways to collaborate, perhaps over sumptuous servings of raclette. (Yes, I have a favorite fondue place in Basel, and I am gatekeeping it.)
It’s about ideas, but there will also be a fair amount of wheeling and dealing—while there are speakers and panels at Sun Valley, serious deals get done there too. (A few of the reported Allen & Co. greatest hits: Comcast buying NBCUniversal, Jeff Bezos buying The Washington Post, Google buying YouTube.) If you thought the bar at the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois was stacked with billionaires during the art fair in June, just wait until 2028.
But beyond being a boon to the local economy, the Futurific Institute hopes to enhance daily lives. Those I spoke to seemed nostalgic for a monoculture that could be thoroughly affected by a single expo, one with such an electric chemistry that it could allow the creation of things that change the quotidian existence of ordinary people.
The goal is to have it be “much like the world’s fair, which unveiled the monorail, ketchup, electricity, and all of these big ideas that were going to change our cultural life,” a source said.
There’s no programming announcements as of yet, but look for things to trickle out in the next year as we get closer to the 2028 launch date. When asked to comment via a rep, James and Kathryn Murdoch declined.
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