February 2025: Attending Confex, event accessibility and site visits.

I am writing February’s monthly roundup from my hotel room after a brilliant day at Confex, followed by a wonderful MIA dinner at the stunning Clermont London, Charing Cross.

This year, I decided to attend Confex as a delegate, which meant I could not only catch up with people but also attend some sessions – the best of both worlds.

Now, it is back to the venue to see how we can incorporate some of my learnings into Horizon Leeds.

Event Accessibility

The Event Accessibility session was extremely informative and has stayed with me since. Panellist Ryan Curtis-Johnson said, “Accessibility should just be part of an event’s DNA,” and this is so true. Although there is always more we can learn and implement, hence why attending sessions like these is so valuable, I believe as a team we have a good understanding of what creating an accessible event should look like. However, ensuring our clients are aware is where I believe we need to focus our attention. If anyone has any success stories on how they have done this, I would love to hear from you. We have a dedicated area for accessibility to the venue, here.

Hybrid Events

Another session I loved was ‘What happened to Hybrid Events, and what have we learnt since the pandemic?’ It was fascinating to hear where the audience was on their journey with hybrid events, and if you are wondering, yes, hybrid is here to stay! There was a definite pattern of the sectors that still include a virtual element within their events, and interestingly but not surprisingly, this came back to accessibility as well as sustainability and time.

This fits with what we see at Horizon Leeds, with accessibility being at the forefront of the conversation. We have clients who hold medical events for service users with conditions that may prevent them from attending a venue; therefore, a hybrid offering enables these individuals to experience the event and engage in content in a way that works for them. As I am sure you are aware, hybrid and virtual events are something the venue is extremely passionate about and having the option to not only provide a hybrid experience but also a quality virtual offering via our Broadcast Studio is a fantastic USP for the venue.

Our state-of-the-art Broadcast Studio can accommodate up to four speakers live in the studio at one time and endless numbers off-site. Find out more about our brilliant studio, here.

At the Venue

So, from Confex to February events. This month, the venue has been less about the exclusive-use conferences and more about smaller 20–40 meetings and workshops. We have been lucky enough to have several clients who have booked 2 or 3-day meetings, so we get to know the delegates and provide an office-away-from-office feel. It also means we can mix up our catering offer to ensure that delegates have different menus each day and can experience more of Catering Yorkshire’s tasty treats!

From an enquiry point of view, we are still receiving requests for March, which is for a mixture of events, so we’re keeping Tracey very busy. But we do still have some availability left, so feel free to get in touch with the team if you are looking for a venue to host your event or meeting.

We’ve been looking ahead at the rest of the year, and one of the main focuses this month has been reviewing October and November. If you are looking at holding an exclusive use event in these months or a conference for over 60 delegates, please get in touch soon as dates are quickly filling up.

Site Visits

I have had some brilliant site visits this month, and as discussed in last month’s monthly roundup, gone are the days when I can show people around an empty venue. It’s all about lunchtime visits where you can see the venue working at its best, full of happy delegates and busy operational staff. That said, I have toyed with the idea of having an open site visit once a month where I can block out the venue purely for site visits. Is this something you would be interested in, and if so, what day of the week would you prefer?

Right, it’s time to treat myself to a hotel breakfast!