Barnes & Noble Partners with Make: Magazine to Launch First-Ever Mini Maker Faire® in Stores Nationwide
Barnes & Noble Stores to Host a Free Mini Maker Faire for Adults and
Children on November 6, 7 and 8
Calling All Makers: Maker Faire Is a Community-Based Learning Event
that Inspires Everyone from the Hobbyist to the Professional to Be a
Maker
Partnership with Make: Magazine Highlights Barnes & Noble’s
Commitment to Promoting Tech Literacy
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail
bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and
educational products, today announced a new partnership with Maker
Media, publisher of Make: magazine and producer of Maker Faire,
to launch the first-ever Mini Maker Faire in stores nationwide. Barnes &
Noble and Maker Media are “Calling All Makers” to participate at their
local Barnes & Noble store the weekend of November 6-8 to share their
inventions, ideas and more.
A Maker Faire is a community-based learning event that inspires everyone
to become a Maker and connect with people and projects in their local
community. These events are for people of all ages and backgrounds who
have a desire to create, learn and share, and who bring a DIY mindset to
technology.
“We are thrilled to host the first-ever retail Mini Maker Faire in
partnership with Maker Media,” said Kathleen Campisano, Vice President,
Toys & Games at Barnes & Noble. “Literacy is at the core of what we do,
and rolling out the first-ever Mini Maker Faire in stores nationwide
signals our commitment to what we believe it means to be literate in the
21st century. Tech literacy and being tech literate is a huge
part of engaging in everyday life and remaining connected to the world.
No other retailer is more poised to serve the community in this
endeavor. It is both a privilege and responsibility, which is why this
partnership and hosting this Mini Maker Faire in stores across the
country is so important to us.”
Barnes & Noble’s Mini Maker Faire will offer authentic, credible
experiences that Maker Faire attendees have historically come to expect;
all the while introducing, educating and engaging others to what the
Maker movement is all about. The Mini Maker Faire will feature hands-on
learning and making opportunities in the areas of ideation, creative
thinking, art, design, construction and innovation, as well as
programming, coding and 3D printing – with activities for children ages
five and up to adults. For information, customers can visit BN.com/MakerFaire,
and Barnes & Noble and Maker Media will be announcing much more about
the Mini Maker Faire in the coming weeks.
“We’re so pleased to bring Making into the national spotlight through
this exciting program,” said Sherry Huss, Vice President of Event
Operations and co-founder of Maker Faire. “Barnes & Noble is one of our
most important partners and the largest reseller of Make:
magazine. Now Barnes & Noble customers who know us through Make:
will be introduced to the Maker Faire experience. With access to tools
and resources, they can learn new skills, discover their personal Making
passion, and be inspired by local Makers in their communities.”
The Maker movement has boomed in recent years, as evidenced by the more
than 130 worldwide Maker Faires that took place in 2014, including one
at the White House1. In fact, Makers inject $29 billion into
the economy every year and more than $116 million has been raised for
over 1,400 technology-related projects on Kickstarter, most of them
hardware gadgets, according to Atmel, a company that designs and
manufactures semiconductors and microcontrollers2.
The Mini Maker Faire at Barnes & Noble will run throughout the weekend
of November 6-8 and will consist of three main areas:
-
The Make Workspace – where customers will experience the latest
technologies in 3D printing, robotics, coding, programming and more. -
Meet the Makers – the place in store where customers will hear
from leaders, top brands and local makers about the latest trends in
designing, building, creating and making. -
Make & Collaborate – where customers can immerse themselves
in the process of ideation, rapid prototyping, circuitry and more.
Barnes & Noble and Maker Media will announce more exciting details over
the coming weeks. Customers can visit BN.com/MakerFaire
regularly for the latest news.
1. Maker
Faires Around the World, Maker Media.
2. “4
Ways Makers Are Changing the World,” Huffington Post,
Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Cisco (May 15, 2015).
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is a Fortune 500 company, the nation’s
largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital
media and educational products. The Company operates 647 Barnes & Noble
bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites,
BN.com (www.bn.com).
The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK®
tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and
entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store
features more than 4 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com)
and UK (www.nook.co.uk),
plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and offers the
ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through
Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS®
and Windows®.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting
the Company’s corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
Barnes & Noble®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers®
and Barnes & Noble.com® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble,
Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK® and the NOOK logos are
trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.
For more information on Barnes & Noble, follow us on Twitter,
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About Maker Media
Maker Media is a global platform for connecting makers with each other,
with products and services, and with our partners. Through media, events
and ecommerce, Maker Media serves a growing community of makers who
bring a DIY mindset to technology. Whether as hobbyists or
professionals, makers are creative, resourceful and curious, developing
projects that demonstrate how they can interact with the world around
them. The launch of Make: magazine in 2005, followed by Maker
Faire in 2006, jumpstarted a worldwide Maker Movement, which is
transforming innovation, culture and education. Headquartered in San
Francisco,
Maker Media is the publisher of Make:
magazine and the producer of
Maker Faire. It also develops “getting started” kits and books that
are sold in its
Maker Shed store as well as in retail channels. The Make: brand
caters to a universe of more than 25 million makers collectively across
its Make: magazine, makezine.com, Maker Faires, and Maker Shed
properties.
Contacts
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Mary Ellen Keating, 212-633-3323
Senior
Vice President
Corporate Communications
mkeating@bn.com
or
Barnes
& Noble, Inc.
Alan McNamara, 212-633-3379
Director
Corporate
Communications
amcnamara@bn.com
or
Maker
Media, Inc.
Brita Muller, 818-554-5932
Digital Marcom & PR
Manager
brita@makermedia.com
