Original Thinkers – 3rd Annual October 1-11, 2020

Smart, Entertaining, Compelling

The 3rd annual Original Thinkers Festival will take place virtually this year on October 1-11, 2020, from Telluride, Colorado. Even though the festival will be undeniably different, its focus on some of our time’s big ideas will still be at the core of this event.  As always, there will be ten highly curated individual shows with speakers, art, music, and film. 

Original Thinker’s 2020 programming, which will be announced in the coming weeks, examines some of the seismic issues of 2020 with a fresh perspective. As Original Thinkers founder and ringleader, David Holbrooke states, “It is a confounding time for anyone who looks around and sees how troubled our present, much less our future is, which is why we believe original thinking is so damn important. The same old approach to ever more serious problems won’t work, which is something we have seen with the inspirational Black Lives Matter movement.”

The festival will continue to focus on the critical but often overlooked intersections between ideas and stories. “There are so many big ideas in our individual lives that can help us process this increasingly complicated world. What we try to do at Original Thinkers is find those stories that will resonate deeply and stay with us long after we have taken them in, creating an indelible experience”, says Holbrooke.

This will be the third year for Original Thinkers, which has tried to adapt as adeptly as possible. Holbrooke says that “Creating a new cultural entity is extremely challenging in any environment and especially so in the middle of a pandemic. That being said, as the world rapidly changes, original thinking is needed, now more than ever.”

With the digital version of the festival, Original Thinkers is excited to reach entirely new audiences this year who may not have been able to make it to Telluride in the past for the terrestrial event. Passes for the entire festival will be on sale at originalthinkers.com for $50, and the dates of the event have expanded beyond the traditional four days to ten so that people can come and be part of Original Thinkers throughout this period. “It’s unnerving to embark on this, but we believe in the power of our program and think that people really need – and want – something that is smart, entertaining, and compelling that will give us some context and clarity to this critical juncture in history”, says Holbrooke. 

SCHEDULE:

The 3rd annual Original Thinkers Festival starts virtually and will run October 1-11, 2020. Even though the festival will be undeniably different, its focus on some of our time’s big ideas will still be at the core of this event. As always, there will be ten highly curated individual shows with speakers, art, music, and film.

• Their first show will be Collective Culture, which feels like the right way to kick off Original Thinkers 2020. It looks at how humans need to take in culture together and what happens when we are deprived of this life force.

• Longtime film executive Ted Hope will speak to his industry and where it will go, while Telluride Theater Director Sasha Sullivan looks at the sacred space that is the theater and musician Dierks Bentley offers his thoughts on the indelible bond between artist and audience.

• This show also features the World Premiere of Postman Jim, a short doc produced by OT ringleader David Holbrooke that follows legendary Telluride postman Jim Looney on the last days at the Post Office before he retired.

• We open our program with a musical performance from Brigid Kaelin and graphics by local artist Brooke Einbender.

Please explore our on-demand catalog, and view our upcoming Live Streams to see what’s happening virtually October 1-11 for Original Thinkers.

For additional information or to purchase festival passes, please visit originalthinkers.com.

~Mountain Town Magazine

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