Cloth Hall Court, part of the Well Met conferencing department for Leeds Beckett University, hosted its first corporate dinner 25 April, when it played host to the speakers, sponsors and guests of FinTech North.
Cloth Hall Court opened in July 2017 as a dedicated conferencing venue as part Well Met, following a £4.5m refurbishment.
FinTech North brings together policy and decision-makers across public and private sector, alongside some of the region’s most well-established business, media, financial services and tech firms.
Organiser Tim Connell, consultant at Whitecap, explained why they brought the dinner to the refurbished former 18th century textile trading site. “This is our third year of running the pre-conference dinner. Our speakers and sponsors tell us that this is an important opportunity for them to get to know their fellow participants, so we wanted an informal space where people can eat, chat and connect in a relaxed setting.
“Cloth Hall Court is an expansive space that we used to our advantage. Laying out the large tables with family-style sharing platters meant our guests were soon making the most of the relaxed setting.”
Charlie Denison, chef, Cloth Hall Court, created the food offer and said: “We wanted to create a mix of dishes that would be suitable for a relaxed buffet style, but still bursting with quality and flavour. Equally, we wanted to use this as an opportunity to showcase the best of Yorkshire from our amazing, local suppliers. The family sharing platters meant that we could prepare a lot of the dishes in advance so that everything was ready for our guests when they arrived.”
Clare Vidler, Conference Manager at Cloth Hall Court commented: “This was a first for us and I’m delighted at how well the team responded to make this happen.”
The Fin Tech North took place on the 26 April, as part of Leeds Digital Festival.
The Leeds event is the first in a series of three FinTech North events. The other two conferences take place in Manchester (22 May) and Liverpool (12 June).
Now in its third year, FinTech North was set up in 2016 by Leeds-based Whitecap Consulting and White Label Crowdfunding to reinforce the UK’s Northern Powerhouse region as a centre of excellence for FinTech.
