Leeds Digital Festival: staged to be the perfect platform for everyone

After the success of last year’s Festival, the development of this year’s site has been a labour of love (and improvements) for both us and Creode – the agency who have designed and built the platform with us.

Last year’s festival was held over two periods, and despite being interrupted by the Covid outbreak, still hosted a whopping 428 events, welcomed over 45,000 attendees, and reached over 60 countries. 

It’s success that Festival Director, Stuart Clarke, is very keen to build on; 

“We are very proud of what Leeds Digital Festival has achieved so far, not least in the way it has made all things digital more accessible to more people. As the Tech Event for Everyone, we’re looking forward to further spreading the global message about the innovation and talent we have here in Leeds and the wider city region. We’re really pleased to be working with Creode again to help us get that message out.”

Stuart Clarke, Leeds Digital Festival Director

And the site, which has launched this month, will flex in its functionality as the Festival nears its first event in September. So if you’re planning on either hosting, or indeed, attending any LDF events this year, here’s what you need to know:

• Event submissions will close at 5pm on Wednesday 18th August, at which time the event submissions form will be deactivated.

• Tuesday 31st August is a big day too, as that’s when the full event programme goes live on the site and people can take their pick from the Events page, whilst seeing featured events on our home page. At this point, attendees will be able to create accounts and shortlist events they are interested in. This is a biggy for us here at LDF as it means guests can build their festival schedule and book onto events with ease.

• Last date for your diary: from 1st October onwards – slides/video content from the events will start to go live so that the site becomes a year-round resource. It’s our aim to make events at Leeds Digital Festival the gifts that keep on giving, and truly make it The Tech Event For Everyone – even those who couldn’t make it in real time.

Creode MD, Guy Weston, says the work on the Festival site is a testament to the agency’s desire to create not only memorable online experiences for everyone, but real and tangible steps forward.

“We see this project as very much building on and improving on the Festival success, thus far. We are proud to be a major part of the burgeoning digital and marketing scene in Leeds, so with the addition of extra functionality to the site, we see this as very much helping LDF to be bigger, better and more accessible than ever before.”

Guy Weston, Managing Director OF Creode

The Leeds Digital Festival has earned a growing reputation amongst digital experts, evangelists and newcomers alike over the years, and it has become a firm fixture in the regional and international calendar over the last few years.

It’s seen by many in digital industries as a must-visit event amongst one of the fastest growing digital economies outside of London. Leeds hosts the North’s highest proportion of scale-up digital companies, with 9,000 alone in the Leeds City Region and is host to Channel 4’s national HQ and has 9 universities with an annual output of almost 18,000 STEAM grads.

Join us at this year’s Festival from September 20th to October 1st.

Full Festival programme incoming on 31st August.