This year’s Leeds Digital Festival saw 170 events attended by 20,000 people and gave the city the distinction of having more tech events than San Francisco.
The Festival took place from 16th to 27th April, across more than 60 venues across the city. Events included Sky Bet’s full day TechEdge conference, FinTech North, the launch of Bruntwood’s Platform tech hub, and a man in a jetsuit flying around Leeds City College. Sponsors University of Leeds organised 18 events, including one on Immersive Technology.
Festival Director, Stuart Clarke, said “The fact that we had more events than San Francisco shows a giant leap in confidence from the city’s digital and tech sector: to put on 170 events, in around 60 venues; to attract over 500 speakers and 20,000 attendees; to involve thousands of firms from the region, plus their colleagues and customers from all over the UK and indeed the world.
Numbers may have gone up this year, but the quality has also soared. We’ve seen world-class events being staged every day throughout the fortnight, covering every aspect of the sector.”
Tom Forth, Associate at ODI Leeds, who compared the number of events in Leeds and its Californian counterpart, also commented: “I don’t think I’ve seen a better collection of smart city, tech, data, digital design events than Leeds Digital Festival anywhere else in the world.”
Anyone wishing to take part in or sponsor the 2019 Leeds Digital Festival should contact Stuart Clarke.
