That’s how Stuart Clarke, founder of Leeds Digital Festival (LDF), remembers the very beginning. In a city buzzing with potential but craving a platform to show it off, a simple conversation in the pub (The Cross Keys to be specific) lit the fuse.
Fast-forward to today, and LDF is the UK’s largest open tech festival; a two-week celebration of innovation, ambition and collaboration. Each year, hundreds of events unfold across Leeds, spanning everything from AI and HealthTech to diversity in digital and gaming. What makes it stand out? Anyone can host an event. It’s a festival by the community, for the community.
Over the past decade, LDF has grown from a grassroots initiative into a nationally recognised platform. It’s a story shaped by the people who live and breathe Leeds’ tech scene, from startups to universities, public sector champions to enterprise leaders. What binds them is a shared belief that innovation thrives when it’s open, inclusive and proudly local.
Back in 2016, the city’s digital sector was gaining momentum. Leeds had talent, ideas and ambition, but what it lacked was a showcase. There wasn’t a central space to highlight the incredible work happening across agencies, startups, scaleups and research hubs.
That’s when the idea for Leeds Digital Festival was born. A small group of collaborators, like The Data City’s Alex Craven and Stuart, envisioned a festival that would flip the traditional top-down conference model on its head. Instead of curating every talk, LDF would be an open platform, so anyone with something valuable to share could organise an event.
“We’d never run one before, we weren’t sure what to do, and we had to find sponsors.” That first year, the festival featured around 56 events hosted by 37 organisations, with 107 speakers taking part. It was a huge turnout for the first-ever festival, showing that those at that table in the pub were right – the city’s tech scene was booming and needed a space to shine, just like LDF.
With events like ‘Code In The Dark’ at Belgrave Music Hall and ‘Sky’s Women In Tech’ at Leeds Dock, plus the tech’n’music mashup of an Algorave, the city’s tech scene was on fire. It was new, it was local and it worked.
Since 2016, Leeds Digital Festival has grown year-on-year, both in scale and reputation. Event numbers jumped from 56 to 240 in recent years. Attendance has surged too, from a few hundred to tens of thousands, with sessions streamed globally and attendees joining from across the country and further afield.
Support has come from all sides, with corporate sponsors, local authorities, universities and the tech community itself, all playing a role in keeping the Festival going. Leeds City Council, Sky Betting & Gaming, NHS Digital, BJSS now CGI, and dozens of other organisations have backed the festival over the years, helping it evolve into the biggest event on the region’s tech calendar and the biggest open platform tech event in the UK.
Former Chief Officer of Economy and Regeneration at Leeds City Council and current UK Government Leader and Director of Arup, Tom Bridges, says:
“The Leeds Digital Festival has been instrumental in bringing the digital sector together in the city, and in promoting the city on the national and global stage. The foundation for the festival’s success has been its inclusive, creative, collaborative approach. Ten years on from when it was first established, the festival is now a firm fixture in the city’s calendar, and it goes from strength to strength.
But we should recognise and celebrate the vision, determination, and resilience of the LDF team in the early days in making the festival a success in the context of limited resources, naysayers and, in some cases, opposition. When I was at Leeds City Council, it was a no-brainer from my perspective to back the festival with support and some funding. It was a very good investment. Here’s to the next ten years!”
At its heart, LDF remains exactly what it set out to be: open, inclusive and shaped by its community. The festival doesn’t charge to attend or to host. That means first-time organisers stand shoulder to shoulder with major tech brands on the same programme.
It’s not uncommon to see a workshop on digital storytelling hosted in a bar, followed by a panel on computing at a global law firm. This model has made LDF a launchpad for new voices, grassroots initiatives and local tech solutions.
As Stuart puts it:
“Every year, we look at how we can make the Festival better in terms of inclusivity and quality and each year we make tweaks here and there, but the ethos of holding an event where anybody and any organisation can take part remains strong.
As we don’t charge event hosts a fee, virtually every event is free to attend and that’s really important to bring the community together: not everyone can afford hundreds of pounds to attend a tech event.
We see community groups, startups and international tech giants all coming together to shout out about the incredible talent and innovation we have in the city region. It’s a source of pride to us that we’re still bringing people together ten years on.”
Interested in hearing more about Leeds Digital Festival’s journey over the past decade? Stay tuned for part 2, where we’ll explore key moments in LDF history and what the next 10 years of LDF might look like.
The programme goes live on Tuesday 26th August with over 200 free events covering everything from AI to HealthTech, Cybersecurity and FinTech. Keep an eye out on our socials and sign up for our newsletter below for updates.