How digital festivals in Leeds and Sheffield are helping the region roar ahead

In the digital world, mighty oaks soon sprout from tiny acorns. Back in the summer of 2015, Leeds City Council organised a digital summit which attracted around 100 people from the city’s digital and tech companies, colleges and universities and civic bodies. It was a chance to meet and talk about the challenges and opportunities facing this fast growing sector.

In many cities, that’s where it would have ended. The participants would have waited for the council, or the Local Enterprise Partnership, or the government, to “do something”.

But Leeds businesspeople don’t like to twiddle their thumbs and wait for somebody else to seize the day, as Stuart Clarke, the director of the city’s digital festival, can testify.

“A bunch of us got together in a room above a pub, to see what we could do, to see how we could bring the sector together,” he recalls.

“I believe that Leeds is the most collaborative city in the country, where people and firms naturally ask the question, ‘how can we help?’.”

From that meeting, Mr Clarke and a group of volunteers set up the Leeds Digital Festival, which has grown to become the largest tech event in the UK in just four years.

The 2019 festival featured 240 events with 25,000 attendees, spread across 96 different venues.

“It’s grown because, from the start, we designed it as an open-platform, city-wide, not-for-profit festival celebrating digital culture in all its forms; from start-ups to tech giants, anyone with a passion for tech and digital could get involved,’’ says Mr Clarke.

“We wanted to celebrate what we have in the city, but also to collaborate.”

The ‘bottom up’ nature ensures that it truly belongs to the community, Mr Clarke says.

He adds: “They can put on their own events, speak at others, or just turn up and learn, be informed and have fun. We’ve all seen elements of ‘top down’ initiatives that don’t have the full backing of a community or sector, and that fade away when government funding or interest dries up. Those that set out to make money as their primary objective are never fully accepted by a community.”

That said, the Leeds Digital Festival needs funding to operate each year and Mr Clarke is grateful to the event’s sponsors for enabling it to happen every April.

This year’s sponsors include Crisp, Leeds City Council, the University of Leeds, BJSS, DMW Group, the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership and AND Digital.

Mr Clarke adds: “As the festival has grown over the years, we’ve widened the appeal from just tech firms. There are events planned this year from companies as different as Arup engineering consultancy to Northern Ballet, who will showcase how they use tech in their own sectors.”

There have also been a number of events which have focused on increasing the diversity of the sector. The festival has encouraged schoolchildren from the more disadvantaged areas within the city to consider careers in tech. It also supports women who want to take up tech roles and it works with armed services veterans who are seeking a new career.

Mr Clarke says: “This is a really important point: as the sector grows, we need to ensure that we fill the talent and skills gap with a workforce that truly reflects our city and region.

“It’s been great to see so many groups that have had their first start during a Leeds Digital Festival going on to run all-year round events, from Women in Leeds Digital, to She Does Digital, to Fintech North. The collaborative nature of the festival continues across these and other groups across the city all year.

“Last year also saw our first events outside the city centre, from the British Library in Thorp Arch, to the wider city region with events in Halifax and York. The 2020 Festival will see events in Wakefield, Bradford, Harrogate, York and other parts of the region.

Mr Clarke adds: “We’ve enjoyed helping to set up new digital festivals in Halifax and the North East to keep that community spirit across the North. We’re also working with Tech Nation, the Government’s network for encouraging tech entrepreneurship, to spread the collaborative model of the Leeds Digital Festival across the whole of the UK.

“We’re proud of the way that we’ve built an inclusive, crowdsourced community festival that allows everyone to take part.”

The festival returns from April 20 to May 1 and Mr Clarke hopes 2020 will be remembered as the biggest and best event so far.

It may be known as Steel City, but Sheffield is home to a thriving digital sector which now has its own festival.

Mel Kanarek, the director of Sheffield Digital Festival says the event is a platform to raise the profile of Sheffield’s digital industries, which can help attract businesses and talent to the city.

“For digital businesses that are already here, it can help foster connections and collaborations by showcasing the kind of work that is going on,’’ she says.

“For companies outside the industry, it can increase their understanding of how digital can help improve their businesses. And for people, especially young people, who don’t know the industry very well, it can help show them what ‘digital’ is all about and what kind of opportunities there are.”

The festival, which is a collaboration between Field Design and Sheffield Digital, aims to grow in scale and influence. Ms Kanarek praises the vital roles played by Katie Daniel and Jonny Briggs, who are the owners of Field Design, along with the team at Field.

She adds: “The festival wouldn’t happen without them. We also have a great team of volunteers who are helping out this year.

“The theme of our festival is ‘where creativity meets technical excellence’ because that captures the way that people in Sheffield come together to solve problems and make new products and services.

“We’re all so busy getting on with what we do that we rarely take the time to share it and shout about it – so the festival provides a way to do that. We wanted to put Sheffield’s creative and digital cluster firmly on the map alongside other core cities, both across the North of England and nationwide.

“Last year was the first time we ran the festival and we pulled it together in just a few weeks. Even so, we had a really positive reaction from the community.”

Sheffield Digital Festival, which opens on Friday, May 15, is a celebration of all of the city’s creative and digital communities.

Mel Kanarek, the director, believes a thriving digital sector can benefit everyone.

“All the statistics from government back us up – the digital industries are one of the faster growing sectors and, importantly, they create rewarding, high-value jobs. For a city like Sheffield, that’s extremely important,” she says.

“Apart from that, the digital sector has a big role to play in supporting the wider economy. That covers everything from helping traditional industries to improve their operations, create new products or enter new markets, to finding ways for us to live more sustainably, to helping people with their health and wellbeing, to creating new cultural experiences.”

In the long term, the festival aims to attract people from around the world.

She adds: “Sheffield has an excellent track record with festivals.
 The city is the home of Doc/Fest, which is a major international film festival, 
and the Children’s Media Conference. Both of those attract delegates from all over the world. That’s without mentioning all the music, arts, food and outdoor-focused events that happen during the year. I think the Sheffield Digital Festival could become as big as we can manage.”