The Big Sleuth – Sneak Peak

Something super exciting is happening in Birmingham this Summer, and here at Real Mum Reviews, we were super excited to be invited to a behind the scenes press event to get a sneak peak of what is coming! 🙂

Over 150 professionals from across the city attended tonight’s exclusive Big Sleuth event at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where we got our first glimpse of the new ‘paw-some’ bears that will be leaving their mark across the city!

Over 200 designs were submitted by national, regional and local artists, of which 150 will now be bought to life, all thanks to the corporate sponsors who are supporting the initiative.

What is The Big Sleuth?

After the success of 2015’s Big Hoot, Birmingham Children’s Hospital is bringing the sequel in 2017 – The Big Sleuth – making Birmingham become Bear-Mingham for the entire summer!! 🙂

If you are not familiar with the concept – The Big Hoot Trail in 2015 consisted of 89 owl statues, 5ft 5 inches in size, scattered across the city, all of which had been individually decorated by businesses, brands or schools across the county. Using the app, the aim was to find all 89 owls across the trail, and scan them with a QR reader to secure them as “tracked”.

At the end of the summer, the Owls were auctioned off to raise money for Birmingham Children’s Hospital – and the campaign raised over half a million for such an amazing cause! According to the Birmingham Mail – 78 per cent of visitors stated that The Big Hoot was their main reason for being in Birmingham. Collectively, these visitors spent an additional £8 million directly as a result! An amazing result for Birmingham! 🙂

So what is happening this year?

This year, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, working in partnership with creative producers Wild Art, welcome back the trail with The Big Sleuth, the collective noun for a group of bears. 150 bears, 165cm in height, will be taking over the city for 10 weeks this Summer, and tonight we were invited along to see some of the artist’s concept designs which may make it on to the trail.

The designs are simply stunning!! We were able to see a selection of bears in situ as well as concepts of all the artwork submitted for consideration. I was glad I didn’t have to make a selection as I would have found it impossible to choose!  Here are some of my faves….

And these!

I can’t wait to hear which bears make the final line up, and will be supporting Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital every step of the way. Not only are we HUGE fans of the trail itself, but having spent some time at the Children’s with Neve in recent weeks, we wholeheartedly support the cause!

For all the updates on The Big Sleuth as they happen – follow the Facebook page here – The Big Sleuth

You can see some of my favourite pictures from 2015’s Big Hoot Campaign here.