Another great night from SalonNORTH

SalonNORTH held another great evening yesterday (14 June 2012), this time moving to the bigger venue of the Hotel St George in Harrogate as the popularity has grown.

The Harorgate International Festival has been working with SalonNORTH to bring this new genre of entertainment with three speakers over the evening, all with a 30 minute slot.

The expert presenters were hand-picked from the three disciplines of Psychology, Science and the Arts all with the aim of stimulating ideas and thinking.

The evening opened  with neuroscientist Professor Elaine Fox challenging the group to explore if they were a half full or half empty thinker.  A quick quiz later and everybody had a number with how optimistic an individual they actually were. Within the group there were a few hyper-positive individuals, which Elaine explained can be good but needs to be tempered with realism. Elaine continued explaining the benefits possible ways to be more of an optimist.

Next up was Susan Supercharged who worked with the audience to explain how to draw like Picasso. Pens, paper and drawing boards were distributed to the crowd while they had a go at drawing a model on stage,  in the style of a famous artist. The evening slowed just a tad at this point, perhaps losing some of the audience with what they needed to do.

Last up was Kevin Dutton who is an expert in the art of persuasion and has studied confidence tricksters over the years. Kevin told some funny stories that were well received, including the only chat up line that worked every time. With examples of how the brain can be tricked into thinking and is essentially pre-programmed in many ways, he explained that a good technique was to make somebody believe that the decision had come from them. An interesting question from the audience was if he, himself was immune to persuasion – no, not completely  was the answer but he could see many techniques given his academic studies.

It was an enjoyable evening sending you away challenged, knowing a little more about yourself and thinking about what you had just experienced.

The SalonNORTH events are a very welcome addition to entertainments landscape of Harrogate. This event was a sell-out and I suspect the future events will be too.

See other Harrogate Events