‘All Together Now’…HIX is the New Hotel Interiors Event for Europe

HIX is the ever-changing design experience that makes hotels incredible.

Each edition will be designed to capture the spirit of the times, giving its guests both strategic and tactical inspiration and direction. The organisers will focus on ‘HIX space and HIX time’; a curated edit of leading suppliers and installations, alongside a schedule of activity designed to navigate guests through their HIX experience.

A New Event in a New World

HIX’s co-founders have enjoyed a combined 40 years event experience within interiors and hotel design and HIX was born from their belief that great events make communities, businesses and people better.

Joel Butler, co-founder of HIX, said: “When we decided to create the event, it was always about the power of community and shared, joyful experience. Now we’re in the midst of a global pandemic and we couldn’t be surer about our decision. HIX this November is for the community to rethink, rebuild, recover and prosper.”

HIX’s founding principles haven’t changed, but the COVID-19 crisis has driven the team to evolve their original concepts for 2020. 

HIX will reflect and direct a new normal in hotel design and development, whether permanent or temporary. The 2020 theme is ‘All Together Now’.

Boutique Experience

The 2020 line up already boasts over 100 leading suppliers with more names to be announced soon. HIX celebrates exhibitors as being core to the event’s content, encouraging them to create a narrative around their installations. “We love the idea of having 120 stories instead of simply 120 exhibition stands”, Butler continued. “We will champion collaboration. Now, more than ever”.

Much like a hotel, location is essential to the HIX experience. Butler said, “The BDC is crucial to our identity both as a venue and location. It’s a boutique space surrounded by independent bars, restaurants and cafes, and most importantly it’s right in the heart of the design community.”

The Unlearning

The HIX 2020 seminar is called The Unlearning. It’s clear that the community now enters a period of uncertainty and that the effects of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown are likely to be profound. The Unlearning acknowledges this dynamic and looks to social scientists as speakers. Group behavioural patterns, distance versus intimacy, the economics of travel and the shifting perception of beauty, will all be explored. Experts and visionaries from hospitality development and design will then discuss these topics within the context of hotels.

HIX Works

In the Gallery Hall area, HIX will explore a different design discipline each year and asks, ‘what could this mean for hotels?’

The topic for 2020 is workplace and its relationship with hotel design. Visitors will discover suppliers, symposiums, case studies and all the great things that happen when two creative communities come together and share ideas.  

Butler explains, “HIX Works is a one-off ‘micro event’. The way we all work has changed forever, and it will explore new potentials for workplace and hotel design.”

Join the movement and the Influencer Programme

In the same way that leading suppliers have eagerly joined the HIX movement, the event’s organisers are encouraging designers, procurement companies, project managers, operators and developers to register to attend.

Recruitment also now begins for the HIX Influencer Programme, an exciting schedule for a limited selection of the community’s most influential individuals. Participants will be a combination of the ‘great and the good’ alongside those people simply doing cool and exciting things. 

HIX 2020 takes place at London’s BDC on November 19th-20th. Doors will open the day after AHEAD Europe.