Horizon Leeds is celebrating its 10th birthday.
This week, Horizon Leeds is celebrating its 10th birthday. We have created a blog to reflect on the last decade and the Horizon Leeds journey. It has been an incredible decade full of exciting moments and memories.
Horizon Leeds was born from a need seen by NHS Confederation, which struggled to find suitable spaces to hold meetings and events in Leeds. Looking back now, a need for welcoming spaces with natural daylight, great food, brilliant technology and cost-effective pricing may sound like basic requirements, but at the time independent venues were not a trend and more so resembled projectors stacked up on a pile of books and coffee flasks of instant tea, there were even some overhead projectors being wheeled out!
So, when the 3rd floor of the NHS Confederations building became available it seemed like fate and the idea to create an independent, purpose-filled space took hold.
This is when Megan came on board. Megan first joined to see whether the idea was feasible and what would be needed to create an all-singing, all-dancing independent venue. With the help of a design company, Megan incorporated everything she loved about previous venues she had worked with – natural daylight, flexible spaces, and quality coffee. She also spent a lot of time identifying things that didn’t work well and made changes to reflect this. For example, restricted viewing points, static furniture, poor soundproofing, and interior trends that didn’t have longevity were a definite no-no.
And this is where the lovely Tracey joined the team. Already working within the organisation, Tracey provided the company knowledge alongside a key eye for organisation and process. Megan and Tracey then became the Horizon Leeds dream team.
It was important to us that it was a shared project that the whole team could get involved with, from choosing the colours for each room to creating a brand that truly reflects the values of Horizon Leeds. It is amazing to see how clients still refer to our ‘orange’ room as Inspire@. Once the name had been decided (thank you to Megan’s mum), the colourful brand, based around the aurora came to life. The best part is that our brand has stood the test of time, and we could not be happier with the outcome.
“The day the build started was incredible, I walked upstairs at the end of day one and they had literally ripped everything out and were already putting up walls. It was so exciting to see the designs I had spent months working on come to life!” – Megan.
The build went smoothly with little changes needed to the overall plans however the amount of ordering that needed to be done in the weeks leading up to the opening was like 10 Christmases rolled into one. It was the little things like milk jugs, bins, clocks, hooks the list went on and on. On Thursday 4th September 2014 Horizon Leeds held their first event, some would say start small with a meeting for 25 but no, not here at Horizon Leeds. An internal all-staff conference for 120 was the way to go! It was amazing, of course, there were some niggles, but everyone got involved and the feeling at the end of the event will never be forgotten.
My proudest moment was our first-ever event, a staff conference for NHS Confederation which Horizon Leeds is part of. Our biggest room, Create@ was set up with a stage, lectern, coloured LED lighting and tables laid out with glasses and colourful water bottles. I remember looking around the room at everyone enjoying the conference, everything looked so perfect! Then at lunchtime, I saw the buffet lunch laid out and everyone chatting and relaxing in the Meet@ refreshment area. Everything just worked so well! Megan & I worked together on the build of the venue and sourcing items such as cups, glasses, pens, and furniture. From a floorplan I marked out on the floor, with masking tape where walls and seating areas would be to give the NHS Confederation staff an idea of how the venue would be set out before the build started. To see it all in action on that day made me so proud of how it had all come together. – Tracey.
The project had always had internal requirements at the heart of its objectives and the original idea was to then open this up to healthcare organisations who worked with the NHS Confederation, however, it quickly became apparent that commercial organisations also needed a digital-led venue, so the decision was made to open the doors to everyone. This meant new types of formats, interesting requests, and a wide variety of amazing events. With this came the need for an extra pair of hands, so in December 2014 Horizon Leeds welcomed Natalie into the family.
There was now no stopping us and in 2015 our hard work was recognised when we won two CHS Awards, ‘Best Day Delegate Rate’ and ‘Best Boardroom’.
“I will never forget this evening, we went not expecting in a million years that we would win, so the shock when they called our name was apparent to the whole room!” – Natalie.
Horizon Leeds was flying, we were welcoming amazing new businesses through the doors, providing fantastic facilities for organisations who didn’t have the finances to pay for state-of-the-art before and creating great contacts across the city.
Then disaster struck when the 2015 Boxing Day floods, flooded the building. Although the venue was safe as we’re on the 3rd floor, the basement where all the mechanical and electrical systems or the building were housed was destroyed and the venue had to close for 3 months. However, anyone who has met the team knows that wasn’t going to stop them and overnight they managed to relocate every booking to different venues around Leeds. For the next 3 months, the team had their event backpacks on and projectors in hand the team managed all events from alternative locations. Every event still went ahead, and the team were on hand to manage all of them. Something which was recognised at the 2016 CHS Awards when the team won the ‘Chairman Award’ for the perseverance and creativity the venue demonstrated during the floods. For the second year in a row, we won ‘Best Delegate Rate’ in 2015.
As the events and team grew, Horizon Leeds noticed a trend for 60 – 90 delegate conferences/events. At the time Create@ was one large space which could accommodate up to 150 delegates cabaret style and this meant once filled business sadly had to be turned away. So, in 2017 the decision was made to add the soundproof partition and create a flexible space which could be either Create@ for the larger events or could be transformed into Create@1 and Create@2 to cater for the 60 – 90 events. The only problem was there was no guarantee that the soundproofing would work! It was a nail-biting time the day the partition was first tested and to the team’s absolute joy the venue now had two flexible fully soundproofed spaces which provided clients with exactly what they had asked for!
During this time the venue also upgraded the technology which was recognised by several CHS Awards for ‘Best Use of Technological Advancements’ and ‘Best Onsite Audio Visual’ in 2017 and 2018.
At this point, the team realised they needed support with marketing to help shout about Horizon Leeds, and that’s when the NHS Confederations Events Marketing team came on board to support them with marketing the venue, whether that’s across our social channels, creating industry-led blogs, our fortnightly newsletters, and also included designing and maintaining the Horizon Leeds’ standalone venue website!
Then 2020 and Covid hit which for the events industry in general was heartbreaking. Overnight Horizon Leeds had to close the doors with no idea when they would be allowed to reopen. However, as is clear from our story so far Horizon Leeds is all about thinking outside of the box and looking at the best way in which we can support clients. This is when the Broadcast Studio was born. Working alongside Firefly, the venue created a multi-camera studio where content could be streamed live to an audience or recorded for later use. During the pandemic the Broadcast Studio hosted virtual award ceremonies, international training sessions and regular whole company comms for a wide variety of clients. When we were able to welcome delegates back through our doors, we moved the studio into what was the team’s office and created a standalone Broadcast Studio which is still a big part of our business today.
This knowledge of virtual and hybrid events has now moved into all the meeting spaces and hybrid events whether that be a small board meeting for 20 or a large conference for over 200 are managed by the team weekly.
And that brings us to today, where Megan, Tracey and Natalie are still a huge part of Horizon Leeds, but we have also welcomed some new fantastic staff to the Horizon Leeds family.
Our incredible team is dedicated to creating a unique and unforgettable experience for everyone who walks through our doors.
- Megan MacBrairdy, Venue Sales & Marketing Manager
- Natalie Pitts, Facilities & Venue Operations Manager
- Tracey Gibson, Reservations Co-ordinator
- Emily Hobbs, Office and Venue Operations Coordinator
- Emma Walter, Events Marketing Manager (NHS Confederation)
- Danni Carr, Senior Events Marketing Officer (NHS Confederation)
Our proudest statement still stands today: ‘100% of clients have said that they would return to the venue and recommend Horizon Leeds to a colleague.’ We are extremely passionate about what we do and the impact we can have on clients’ events.
So with a flood, remodel, pandemic, a broadcast studio, 2 weddings, 3 children, 2 dogs and many, many coffees served, the team can’t wait to see what the next chapter has in store.
We would not be here without our clients, partners, suppliers, family & friends but not least our fab team who have been an integral part of our growth and success over the last 10 years.
At Horizon Leeds we take pride in being an award-winning and innovative conference & meeting venue that stands out. The team look forward to welcoming you through the doors soon and being part of the Horizon Leeds journey!
