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Writer's pictureNiche Magazine

Leicester Business Festival kick starts with stakeholder and event organiser webinars

Organisers of the Leicester Business Festival (LBF) are staging a webinar to help businesses develop their events for the festival, taking place on November 2 to 13.

Group of professionals standing outside building in the sunshine

The webinar, on Thursday, July 16 from 12-1pm, will take potential event organisers through the process of putting on an event and what would work well in the festival, as well as and the option of running an online, digital event.

Anyone wishing to take part will need to register to receive the link. Those unable to attend will be able to see a recording of the presentation on the LBF website shortly afterwards.

Now in its sixth year, the LBF has adapted to be flexible so that events can be purely digital, physical (if possible in November) or a combination of the two. A digital platform will be made available to event organisers and details of this will be shared in the webinar. Yesterday, LBF stakeholders met for the first time this year to learn about the new structure and format of the 2020 Business Festival and help shape future of this long-standing annual event.

Over 40 attendees which included partners and sponsors, representatives from local authorities, universities and businesses discussed the critical focus and changes for LBF2020 - centred around the key sectors, digital aspects and the four core themes of Business Support, Innovation, Health and Resilience.

Richard Osborn, regional director at Excello Law and director of the LBF Community Interest Company (CiC), part-presented the stakeholders' meeting. He commented: “The Business Festival is now in its sixth year and the CiC is keen to see it continue to grow and develop to ensure that it meets its objectives and effectively serve the business community in the best possible way.

“The LBF has been placed at the heart of the Leicester & Leicestershire’s economic recovery plan because its value and impact on the region has been recognised at the highest level. Importantly, it is a strong platform on which to show the rest of the UK that we are resilient, we are open for business and we still have a fantastic proposition to offer.”

A new LBF ‘Programming Board’ of key business leaders has also been formed for 2020. This is chaired by Scott Charlish, East Midlands head of planning for Brewin Dolphin, and comprises key business leaders who are well-known in their field, who will oversee the key sectors and drive headline events in the sector.

Scott, who also presented at the stakeholders’ webinar said: “Businesses always need to look forwards and we see the Business Festival as a great opportunity to aid this process. It is a platform to connect the support available as well as celebrate the best of what Leicester and Leicestershire has to offer. I urge businesses to think about getting involved. We are looking for good quality events and Programming Board will be using their connections and influences to help drive this.”

The LBF was originally established by the Leicester & Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) in 2015 and handed over to the Leicester Business Festival Community Interest Company (under which it still operates) in 2017.


It is headline partnered by De Montfort University and is run in association with Associate Events. Partners are East Midlands Chamber; Business Gateway Growth Hub. Sponsors are Brewin Dolphin; Pattersons Commercial Law and the University of Leicester and supporters are: Everards Brewery; Leicester Castle Business School (DMU); Bradgate Estates and Team Leicester. Media partners are Metro News and the App partner is Infonote.

Applications to run events in the festival are open until September 1. Businesses simply need to submit details about their event to apply.

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