SXSW-inspired digital festival teams up with Live At Leeds

Leeds’ digital community has taken inspiration from the US to tie up with the city’s Live At Leeds music festival.
Live At Leeds 2015 main stage, Millennium SquareLive At Leeds 2015 main stage, Millennium Square
Live At Leeds 2015 main stage, Millennium Square

Leeds Digital Festival is a non-profit group formed by some of the city’s top digital organisations, including Bloom, CDi Print Yorkshire, Dotforge, Epiphany, Jaywing, FutureLabs and Media Yorkshire.

It aims to bring together some of the 3,500 digital businesses within Leeds, in order to promote the industry and attract a wider audience to the events.

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The inaugural Leeds Digital Festival event will coincide with Futuresound Events’ 10th Live At Leeds music festival, the award-winning, multi-venue event that is set to take place between running between April 25 and 29 2016.

It follows an increasing trend for combined music and digital media festivals, with the SXSW in Austin, Texas being the most prominent.

The group said: “By combining digital themes with Live At Leeds, the organisers hope to bring an even larger audience into Leeds and will crossover from business to culture to music, as seen in more established festivals around the world.”

A number of sponsors and venues have already pledged support, and funding from Leeds City Council’s Promoting Leeds fund has been secured, the group said.

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The festival also coincides with the weekend of the Tour de Yorkshire.

In addition to the annual festival, Leeds Digital Festival event will be held throughout the year, with support from volunteers from several of the city’s digital businesses and in partnership with Leeds City Council.

April’s Leeds Digital Festival will include large shows with keynote speakers from the digital and business sectors, alongside smaller scale events.

Members of Leeds’ digital community have been encouraged to suggest, create and host events for the annual festival.

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The group called on everyone in the city to put on an event with a digital theme, such as business, startups, culture, art and music.

It added it hopes the number of fringe events will “greatly outnumber” those organised as part of the official festival.

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