November Business Festival looks to re-energise Leicestershire business community

The Leicester Business Festival (LBF) will be taking place from 2 to 13 November 2020 and this year will be the most important in its six-year history.

With the rapidly changing global situation relating to the Coronavirus Covid-19, the 2020 Festival looks likely to take on a new role in addition to its usual functions, centred around challenging, stimulating and aiding business growth and placing the region’s business community as a national leader.

Following the Prime Minister's announcement on Sunday [10 May], LBF is perfectly placed to re-unify the Leicester and Leicestershire business community and inject critical optimism back into the region, after months of interruption. The focus: supporting, promoting and discussing changes in the way that businesses will work now and in the future.

With much uncertainty ahead, LBF is ready and prepared to adapt and as such, is seeking to offer a ‘hybrid’ festival, where event organisers have the opportunity to ‘go digital’ and live-stream their events via the LBF website, whilst also holding them physically (within guidelines of the government at that time).

Alister de Ternant, managing director of Associate Events, the agency managing the LBF programme said, “After months of challenging down time for many, firms will be looking for something to reunite, revitalise and showcase the business scene and this is exactly what the LBF was designed to do.

“I am sure we will see many of the events in the programme develop around supporting businesses affected by the Coronavirus, but we are also in discussions with a myriad of event organisers keen to discuss a range of subjects focusing on the unique assets and strengths of our community. For both attendees and event organisers, the LBF will be a way to get out and about again, bringing much-needed positivity to Leicester and Leicestershire, its businesses and its economy.

“Although I have no doubt this will take many months if not years to get back to any sense of ‘normality’, we hope that the LBF [off and online] can be a catalyst for re-energising Leicestershire’s phenomenally critical business community and support it throughout this essential period.”

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.

The Business Festival’s headline partner for the past four years has been Leicester Castle Business School (De Montfort University). De Montfort University will be headlining the LBF this year and has committed to supporting this critical initiative for a further three years.

The LLEP Business Gateway and the East Midlands Chamber as partners along with sponsors, Brewin Dolphin; and Pattersons Commercial Law and supporters, Everards Brewery; Leicester Castle Business School (DMU) and Team Leicester, continue to play an integral role in the Festival.

An announcement regarding the event application opening date will be made in the coming weeks, but organisers have said that the application window is likely to stay open until the end of August to allow companies plenty of time to consider how they can capitalise on the Business Festival and its unparalleled position.

For more information visit the LBF website www.leicesterbusinessfestival.com, contact hello@leicesterbusinessfestival.com or 0116 464 5995.