London , England ( CNN ) -- It 's a windy and misty Sunday afternoon in March in the beautiful coastal town of Aldeburgh , Suffolk , and bleary-eyed travelers are disembarking from a coach after a two-hour journey from London . But these are no ordinary tourists . Among them are some of the most influential names in British media and politics , and about 150 of them have descended on this sleepy town , best known for being the home of the late composer Benjamin Britten , to attend the Names not Numbers ideas festival . Over the next few days , the attendees of this conference , which has been described as `` intellectual viagra , '' will indulge in heavy , and sometimes provocative , discourse around themes such as creativity , history and even neuroscience . From the hugely influential juggernaut that is the TED conference to the invite-only Google Zeitgeist to South by Southwest in Austin , Texas , there has been an undeniable boom in the ideas movement , bringing together creative luminaries and thinkers to flex some serious brain muscle . In his book `` Where good ideas come from , '' Steven Johnson attempts to explain the phenomenon of inspiration and argues that peer-produced innovations is key in the process of developing ideas , by bringing together doers and a network of thinkers to create new things in a collaborative process . At Names not Numbers , an event sponsored by CNN International , the combination of limiting delegate numbers and bringing together an eclectic mix of speakers to hold 19th century-style salons in a remote location is intended to create a more communal experience than a conventional conference , says founder Julia Hobsbawm . Read more : The woman using social media to predict the future . Founded in 2009 , Hobsbawm , the daughter of Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm , describes the event as an `` experiential residential '' that connects people from `` different walks of life -- business , culture , media , politics , academia , with each other in a very intensive setting . '' `` The day conference is not conducive to fostering really brilliant ideas , so Names Not Numbers has always had the travel and shared cottage accommodation at its heart , as well as excellent content in the sessions themselves , '' she adds . Previous speakers have included the UK 's prime minister David Cameron , philosopher Alain de Botton and the pop star Annie Lennox . This year , Dominic Young , a tech entrepreneur described it as an `` amazing , legendary event , '' from which he was `` only just coming back to Earth . '' These events are seen as a real force for innovation and harness the power of bringing individuals across disciplines together to hopefully create serendipitous collaborations . `` Ideas conferences are a great source of inspiration , thoughts and , well , ideas , '' says Peter Bale , vice president and general manager of Digital for CNN International . `` CNN International was ready to support Names Not Numbers because it 's an innovative format for generating conversation around some of the most important world issues : neuroscience , internet privacy , inequality and adding literature , arts and music to the mix . '' Gatherings that promote big ideas have never been more valuable or lucrative . Popularized in the 1970s , they have increased significantly in number but perhaps the best known of the genre is the TED conference , which is held twice a year and has spawned a series of offshoots . Among them was the TEDActive conference in Palm Springs , . Ostensibly , TEDActive revolves around simulcasts of the three-day TED talks in Long Beach . However , it has evolved far from this back-seat role to carve it 's own identity and attracts a fiercely loyal crowd that keeps coming back for more . Elizabeth Barry is a marketing executive from New Jersey who has attended Active for the past two years . She describes it as an `` adult camp for intellectual stimulation . '' For some these events represent a move away from the traditional conference model , highly prized by some employers for business education and professional development . But others like Harvard economist Umair Haque argue that the great ideas industry needs `` saving from itself . '' In his blog , he says : `` The ideas industry ... oft seems hell-bent on turning each and every human on planet Earth into either a breathless 'pundit ' or a zombified 'consumer . ' ''
From TED conferences to South by Southwest , ideas festivals are booming . The idea of a festival is not new in the tech world — think SXSW and Disrupt — but it has been growing more popular as companies like Facebook and Google have started their own events around These events are highly prized by some employers for professional development .