From May 7-15, thousands of visitors have enjoyed our first dedicated immersive experience in the USA during the world’s oldest Tulip Festival, Tulip Time, Michigan. IGMPR created a ticketed themed exhibition about the ‘Journey of the Tulip’ based on 3 Immersive Blooming Objects, that were implemented on the Ottawa Fairgrounds. The exhibition attracted thousands of visitors in just a week of operation and was widely covered in the media. Dutch Ambassador André Haspels and Turkish Consul General Engin Türesin paid a special visit to the exhibition during the festival. IGMPR designed and produced the exhibition and supported the implementation and operation on-site.
Our Immersive Blooming Object has landed for the first time in Parco Sigurtà. It has been an honor to set the beautiful painting of Enzo Inga Sigurtà into bloom! Visitors to the Tulipanomania Festival could experience tulips up close and personal for this first time, and create beautiful selfies. Check out the video!
What started as an idea in late 2021 has come to bloom! In cooperation with the diplomatic network of the Netherlands in China and with the support of sponsors, local governments and partners, IGMPR will design, build and implement an Immersive Blooming Object based on the celebration logo, that will travel to 9 cities in China in 2022.
On 29 January the first implementation opened to the public in the beautiful Yuntai Garden in Guangzhou. Untill 20 February , over 120.000 visitors enjoyed the power of flowers and beautiful images were widely shared across (social) media.
Right after the Guangzhou we moved the installation to the city center of megapolis Chongqing, and 4 more cities will follow until May.
There is so much to share about the impact, the technicalities, the flowers, the organization, but we let these images speak for itself.
During a visit to the team of the Tulip Time Festival in Holland, MI, Ibo Gülsen gave an interview to Meredith Ter Haar of ABC Channel ’13 On your Side’ about our upcoming exhibition in May:
It was a privilege and honor to see the original Istanbul Tulip being planted after almost 300 years in its place of birth, together with mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Dutch Consul General Arjen Uijterlinde . This specific tulip was cultivated by the Ottoman gardeners untill the 18th century. Based on our historical research in the works of French botanist Redouté and the British Botanical register we found references to the tulipa acuminata, which was imported directly from Istanbul in the early 19th century and bloomed in the royal gardens in France and UK. Since then cultivation continued on a very small scale in the Netherlands until present day. We look forward to the blooms next Spring! Thanks for the contributions of Gül Yavuzer Irepoglu, Arie Dwarswaard and many others. İstanbul Büyükşehir BelediyesiEmbassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ankara and Consulate General in Istanbul
We are very excited to announce that our immersive ‘Journey of the Tulip’ experience will will feature during the world’s oldest tulip festival, Tulip Time in Holland, MI. This is our first project in the USA and we can’t wait to welcome visitors next May!
Since the official presentation to the mayor of Istanbul last year, The Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands continued the tradition of tulip diplomacy which was once initiated by the Ottoman Sultans. On April 27, the Dutch National Day, over 1.000 Istanbul tulips were handed out by Consul General Bart van Bolhuis and his staff to partners and relations. At that same time a brochure with the research we conducted last year was published. Dutch Florist Romeo Sommers paid tribute to this very old tulip variety in the TV programme Koffietijd. Pictures of the tulip bouquets circulated all over social media. (Photo credits: Rijksmuseum, Koffietijd, Ingrid Woudwijk and Paleis Het Loo)
On March 27, the Dafeng Holland Flower Park the Tulip Festival in Dafeng Holland Flower was officially opened. With new floral acts, parades and installations it offers the visitors an immersive experience into the world of flowers. A dazzling 299.000 visitors enjoyed the tulips from April 3-5 during the Chinese Tomb Sweeping festival, and more are expected to visit throughout April.
Many of the scheduled tulip festivals around the world had to scale back or close also this spring due to COVID-19 restrictions, but fortunately there are still some places open for people to enjoy them!
IGMPR has been supporting Dafeng Holland Flowers since 2015, when it first opened to the public ,and the park has developed itself into one of the major tourist attractions in East-China and is the largest flower park in China.
On 16 March 2021, our founder Mr. Ibo Gülsen will be presenting during the AIPH Expo Conference. Creating compelling storylines and themes are a necessity to activate and attract visitors to any leisure destination including Expos. Based on his experience in the international flower and garden tourism industry, Mr Gülsen will highlight how (Flower) Culture can enhance the visitor experience of horticultural expo’s and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors and more.
As 2020 is coming to an end, we will remember it as a year of extremes. While our core markets (Flowers and Tourism) where heavily affected by the pandemic, we were fortunate to continue to work on key-projects and clients and managed to implement the world’s largest off-season tulip show in Shanghai last October, against all seasons and odds. A small project with a big impact was the Return of The Istanbul Tulip, last May. The operations in the Dafeng Holland Flower Park, recommenced already in March and has seen great visitation numbers since then.
Also exciting new projects in the USA, China and Italy came through, where we are working on at the moment. We look forward sharing the results with you coming Spring.
In between we completed a number of feasibility studies and masterplans for clients related to garden and flower tourism and retail, and celebrated the 5th working anniversary of our colleague Zao Ye, who also made a great contribution to the International Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge.
We were glad to connect with our audiences and share our passion for flowers, gardens and tourism in different conferences and media.
We certainly miss meeting you less frequent in person, this year, but thanks to our local colleague Yi Yin and a wide range of video conference tools we managed to stay close from a distance.
We would like to thank our clients and partners for the pleasant and continued cooperation and we wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy new year!
