On Thursday we hosted our seventh conference, The Great Art of Hospitality.
Seventh.
If you’d told me a couple of years ago we’d be filling rooms in Manchester talking about placemaking, power, resilience and visitor economies, I’d may not have believed you. Yet there we were, partnering with Downtown in Business, taking over the incredible Treehouse Hotel Manchester with a room full of people who genuinely care about this industry.
It was a fantastic day and just wanted to run through the highlights.
Our first session, Beyond the Bar: The Role of Hospitality in City Placemaking, set the tone. Miri Thomas from RDPR chaired it brilliantly, with voices from Landing Light, Sixty Eight People, Chester Zoo and Marketing Manchester. Massive businesses that graced the stage and we are blessed that they gave up their time to talk with us and share their insights.
The big takeaway? Hospitality isn’t a “nice extra.” It shapes cities. It drives footfall. It creates identity. If you want somewhere to feel alive, you need restaurants, bars, attractions, hotels – and you need them working together.
Then the Lumberjaxe boys took the stage and completely lifted the energy. From hustling sauces to landing Dragons’ Den, to now being stocked in Aldi and heading into Asda – it’s graft, belief and a lot of rejection before the wins. You could feel the room leaning in. That story lands because everyone in hospitality knows what it’s like to fight for it.
And of course you can’t come to one of our events without a surprise and delight. We hid three Deva Fest tickets under chairs just to keep people on their toes. I love moments like that. A bit unexpected. A bit fun. It reminds everyone that hospitality should still have personality. So, I asked everyone to stand and check the bottom of their chairs and three people won two tickets to Deva Fest.
The City View session got properly real. With Bill Addy from Liverpool Business Improvement District, Matt Townley from Dakota Hotel Manchester, myself and chaired by Frank McKenna, we were talking potholes, cleanliness, Tourism Tax, collaboration between councils and BIDs – the stuff that actually impacts trade and can make a city better.
Lunch gave us that buzz again – packed exhibition tables from San Carlo, Fazenda, Deva Fest, Foxy Food and our headline sponsor The Godfrey Group. Conversations everywhere. People connecting properly.
The Independent Spirit panel was probably one of my favourites. Honest talk about scaling. About how what works in Manchester might flop in Liverpool. Same concept, same branding, totally different outcome. Hospitality doesn’t owe you success just because it worked once. You adapt or you sink. That’s the truth.
We closed with sport, culture and creativity driving visitor economies – Louise Stewart from Chester Racecourse, Lisa Morton from Roland Dransfield and Becci Thomson from Co-op Live sharing what it really takes to pull major events into a city. With The BRIT Awards in Manchester this weekend, the timing couldn’t have been better. Big events don’t just fill arenas. They fill hotels. They fill taxis. They fill restaurants. That ripple effect is huge.
We ended the event in a way we haven’t done so before with drinks, canapés and conversations still going after the final panel wrapped. This is the positives of collaboration, you learn how other businesses do it and it was such a lovely way to carry on the conversation.
A big thanks to Downtown in Business and Godfrey Group for making this event what it was!
Seven events in.
And it still feels like we’re just getting started.
I’m proud. Proud of the rooms we’re filling. Proud of the conversations we’re creating. Proud that hospitality people keep backing this.
Because this industry is tough. It’s relentless. But when you put the right people together in a room, you remember exactly why it’s worth fighting for.
