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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Leeds Digital Festival’s 2026 edition ran from 21 September to 2 October, with BusinessCloud reporting more than 9,000 delegates, 220 events and activity across 95 venues and online. Those figures show the festival’s reported reach; they do not, by themselves, establish that it caused regional business growth, investment or jobs.
What was Leeds Digital Festival 2026?
Leeds Digital Festival is an open-platform technology festival: independent organisations and individuals host events and submit them for inclusion in the programme. The organiser does not run every listed event, and each event organiser is responsible for sourcing speakers. The 2026 festival took place in Leeds and online from 21 September to 2 October, according to the organiser’s participation information.
The 2026 sponsorship deck describes the festival as having two parts: a curated Mini-Fest, scheduled for 21–23 April, and the open-platform main festival in September and October. The deck also calls Leeds Digital a year-round platform and says the organisation is a non-profit funded entirely through sponsorship. These are the organiser’s descriptions, rather than independently verified financial findings.
How large was the 2026 festival?
BusinessCloud reported the following totals for the September–October edition. The report does not define how delegates were counted, so the figure should not be read as a confirmed count of unique attendees.
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| Reported measure | 2026 figure |
|---|---|
| Delegates | More than 9,000, as reported by BusinessCloud; counting method not specified |
| Events | 220, as reported by BusinessCloud |
| Regional companies organising events | 198, as reported by BusinessCloud |
| Organisations represented by speakers | More than 400, as reported by BusinessCloud |
| Venues | 95 across the city and online, as reported by BusinessCloud |
BusinessCloud described sessions on AI and data, FinTech, HealthTech, GEO, quantum computing and women leaders in technology. It also reported that the programme opened with a CGI-hosted networking session focused on collaboration among small and medium-sized businesses. These event totals and programme details are reported in BusinessCloud’s 2 October 2026 article.
What do the Leeds technology-sector figures show?
BusinessCloud attributed several regional technology statistics to The Data City, describing it as a data specialist and festival supporter. The figures provide context about the sector; the report does not present them as outcomes caused by the festival.
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- 853 technology companies in Leeds: The Data City figure reported by BusinessCloud in 2026; the report says this was more than in any other local authority outside London.
- 8.3% annual sector expansion in Leeds, compared with 8.1% for the UK: The Data City figures reported by BusinessCloud in 2026.
- 13% of local technology businesses classed as high-growth: The Data City figure reported by BusinessCloud in 2026, with high-growth defined there as annual growth above 20%.
- £1.67 billion in gross value added (GVA): The Data City estimate of the Leeds technology economy’s contribution to the UK economy, reported by BusinessCloud in 2026.
BusinessCloud’s article does not provide the underlying study, its fieldwork or publication date, the precise geographic definitions, or the calculation methods behind these statistics. They are therefore best treated as attributed estimates, not as a fully documented or independently reproducible measure of the festival’s effects.
Does Leeds Digital Festival drive economic growth?
The festival’s director, Deb Hetherington, called it “an active economic engine driving business expansion, attracting investment, and opening tangible career pathways for talented people across the region.” That is her assessment of the festival’s role, not an independently measured causal result in BusinessCloud’s report.
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Russell Brown, CEO at SCC UK, also praised Leeds as a technology and regional-investment centre and described the festival as creating opportunities for resilience and talent development. Brown spoke from the sponsor side; his statement is support for the festival, not a separate evaluation of its economic impact. CGI announced that it became headline sponsor in 2026 under a three-year partnership, and described regional innovation and talent support as aims of its involvement.
The available figures document reported activity and regional context: events, delegates, participating companies, speakers, venues and sector estimates. They do not quantify how much business expansion, investment, hiring or career progression happened because of the festival. Establishing that would require outcome measures and a way to distinguish festival-related effects from growth that would otherwise have occurred.
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How should the 2026 figures be compared with earlier editions?
The organiser’s 2026 sponsorship deck gives a retrospective for 2024: 202 festival events, more than 300 participating organisations and more than 500 September Festival speakers. It also reports 58 pieces of PR coverage with a potential audience of 31.6 million, 4 million social-media impressions, 70 insight/news features and 12 Spotlight episodes. These are Leeds Digital’s promotional metrics, not independently audited figures; potential audience is not the same as verified readership or viewership.
The organiser’s 2025 retrospective says the festival started in 2016 with 56 events and grew to 240 events in recent years, while attendance rose from a few hundred to tens of thousands. It does not provide a comparable year-by-year attendance series or an audited definition of attendance. The 2024 and 2026 event counts come from different editions and sources, so they do not by themselves establish a consistent growth trend.
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There is also a separate regional GVA figure on the organiser’s sponsorship page: £1.3 billion in digital GVA, alongside 9,000 digital companies in Leeds City Region, 102,000 people employed in the regional technology sector and nine universities with nearly 18,000 annual STEAM graduates. The page does not state the date or methodology for these statistics. Its £1.3 billion figure has a different stated scope and amount from The Data City’s £1.67 billion Leeds technology-economy estimate reported by BusinessCloud; without the underlying sources, they should not be combined or treated as directly comparable.
How can organisations take part?
For the main festival, prospective organisers submit their own technology-related events for inclusion. The organiser says the 2026 submission window ran from 8 June to 24 July and is now closed. Each event uses its own booking system, so there is no single central ticket that necessarily covers the whole programme. Details are on Leeds Digital Festival’s participation page.
The organiser also says 2026 sponsorship is closed and directs interested organisations toward 2027 packages. Companies considering a future partnership can use the same organiser information to make a direct sponsorship enquiry; this is a sponsorship route, not evidence of a referral or affiliate programme.
Quick Recap
What the evidence supports
- The 2026 festival ran for two weeks, from 21 September to 2 October, in Leeds and online.
- BusinessCloud reported substantial programme and participation totals, but did not specify whether its delegate figure represents unique people.
- The technology-sector statistics were attributed to The Data City through BusinessCloud; the underlying methods and study are not provided in that article.
- The festival director’s “economic engine” description is a stakeholder claim. The figures available do not independently establish a causal economic impact.
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