Another year, another excellent digital festival!

The Leeds Digital Festival, the North’s largest digital festival, takes place between 23rd April – 3rd May 2019 and is a city-wide, open platform celebration of all things digital within the city. Since its birth in 2016, the festival has grown in numerous ways, with a new record of 236 events and an expected 15,000 attendees this year.

Leeds is one of the most innovative digital hubs in the UK, now being home to over 3,500 digital and technology companies across a range of industries. Furthermore, Leeds now has a digital GVA of £688 million with a growth potential of 92%, and the upcoming Leeds Digital Festival will further shine a spotlight on the city’s digital strengths. In addition to this, Leeds has risen four places as a major UK tech sector destination in a rankings list compiled by global real estate advisor CBRE – now appearing as 6th in the UK.

The Festival is an extremely unique experience, which really demonstrates how Leeds is leading the way in discussion and innovation in the tech industry, with the event at the envy of other cities. We are extremely excited by the schedule planned to continue to watch not only our digital sector, but Leeds as a hosting city, thrive.

Some events highlights of this festival include a talk on how Yorkshire-built technology fights child exploitation worldwide, a session called #GIRLTECHLCR, which is a Leeds City Council and thebigword funded project delivered by Ahead Partnership aiming to inspire more females to work in digital and tech in Leeds.

There are also sessions on getting started in coding, and coding in the dark. Aire Logic will also be speaking about digital transformation in Healthcare, and there are a series of master classes running with the best minds in the industry – from design through to social through to Google ads and SEO – for anyone interested in tech to enjoy.

Finally, the festival also shines a spotlight on some of the city’s most popular creative spaces, which also offer excellent conferencing facilities and delegate experiences. The open-platform 11-day festival will take place at a wide variety of different venues in the city, bringing together agencies, collectives, universities and digital companies to celebrate the thriving digital scene in Leeds.