AKQA Founds Q&A Club: Auckland With LBB, The Tuesday Club, Sweetshop

AKQA, in collaboration with The Tuesday Club and Little Black Book, has launched Q&A Club: Auckland, sponsored by Sweetshop.

The Q&A Club is a new creative forum designed to address the most pressing questions facing the industry today.

The Q&A Club: Auckland aims to foster an inclusive, forward-thinking creative community in Aotearoa. Local and global voices will come together to explore the cultural, technological, and ethical shifts shaping the future of creativity, beginning with the most urgent of all: the impact of artificial intelligence.

What does AI mean for creativity, craft, and the future of our industry? Can we use it to serve us versus enslave us? The inaugural fireside discussion will dig into those questions and more.

AKQA AUNZ chief creative officer, Tara McKenty, said, “Aotearoa’s greatest export is creativity. The Q&A Club’s purpose is to become a modern day 17th-century London coffeehouse for the sharing of expertise and ideas but with beer (and of course non-alcoholic options).

"But beyond this halcyon tradition of sharing knowledge, in times of disruption, gathering as a creative community feels more vital than ever.”

The Tuesday Club founder, Nick Worthington, said, “It’s the Questions & Answers Club. Right now, I have more questions than answers, but that’s the whole point of getting a bunch of bright minds together at the Club.”

Sweetshop global head of innovation, Colin Davis, said, “AI isn't a cost-cutting machine. It’s a liberation engine.”

Little Black Book AUNZ managing editor, Brittney Rigby, said, “One of LBB’s global editorial mandates is to ask the biggest names the biggest questions about the biggest issues. It feels particularly important in this region, which has a well-earned reputation as an ideal testing ground for innovation, experimentation, and creative impact.

“So it was a no-brainer to partner with AKQA to regularly gather New Zealand’s creative community to debate and share ideas. And it feels fitting that the first event will feature messy human minds discussing the machine with both fire and nuance.”

The inaugural Q&A Club event will take place on Thursday 21 August at The Tuesday Club in Auckland’s CBD. Doors open at 5:30pm. Entry is free and open to all creatives and marketers, with access granted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Next week, the Q&A Club will reveal the panelists fronting the conversation on whether AI will spark the future or scorch the past.