Request for Proposals: BCMA Community Partners and Conference Location 

Showcase your community’s museums, galleries, arts, and heritage to cultural professionals from every corner of the province by hosting the BC Museums Association’s Annual Conference. Each fall the BC Museums Association (BCMA) holds an internationally-recognized provincial conference in a British Columbia community, bringing together museum, heritage, arts, and cultural experts to learn, network, and explore innovation in the sector.

Host communities will have the opportunity to showcase the creative work of their museum, gallery, archive, heritage and related sectors, gaining great exposure with many of the province’s leading cultural heritage experts. 

Vision for Future BCMA Conference (2023, 2024, 2025)

Over the next three years, the BCMA wishes to push the boundaries of what a conference is and how it engages the heritage community. 

We are open to creative and innovative suggestions from the arts, culture, and heritage sector that range from traditional conference experiences that bring people together in large hotel spaces, to digital/hybrid conference experiences, to new strategic partnerships with peer organizations, to smaller workshops in more remote and diverse communities. Through our next three years of conferences, our goal is to experiment with new models, get feedback from members, and innovate our conference model to be more impactful, engaging, and accessible.

ASSOCIATION BACKGROUND 

The BCMA believes in the transformational power of museums. Founded in 1957, the BCMA creates a bright future for British Columbia’s museums, galleries, and cultural heritage community through networking, advocacy, innovation, and professional development. It delivers programs and services to the benefit of its members and the sector at large, acting as the cultural and heritage information hub for British Columbia while providing a unified voice for the institutions, trustees, professional staff and volunteers. 

The BCMA is a provincially incorporated society and a registered charitable organization. 

EVENT DETAILS 

The BCMA’s annual conference typically takes place in the fall and runs over two or three days. For the next three years, we anticipate anywhere between 150-300 in-person attendees and digital audiences of 200-300, representing cultural institutions from across BC – typically staff from small to large cultural institutions, students, and government partners. To reflect the Association’s geographically diverse membership, we attempt to hold our conference in locations across different regions of the province every time. 

FUNCTION SPACE REQUIREMENTS 

We encourage ideas for venue spaces that create room for greater community engagement and do not rely heavily on hotel meeting spaces. 

When meetings take place in multiple venues, walking distance and venue accessibility should be considered along with weather patterns in the fall. Although some events can take place in a hotel venue, BCMA conference delegates prefer unique spaces within, for example, museums, galleries, and heritage sites. The BCMA team will work with host communities to tailor our program to the location and available space.

Typical venues offer:

• lobby, foyer or pre-function space for delegate registration
• dining area/community space for breaks and networking
• storage space for the organizing team
• one event space with the capacity to hold all delegates
• one to several smaller meeting rooms

A reliable, wired high-speed internet connection for live-streaming the event to virtual attendees would be preferable.