H&E North visited CHS Leeds 2023 for a great day of networking and education.
Back at the Royal Armouries for the 12th edition, CHS Leeds 2023 brought an impressive number
of event professionals, exhibitors, and speakers to the North this year. The show inspected our working habits with the theme: Worklife, questioning personal and professional growth and visions for the future of what worklife means to us all.
Emma Cartmell, Founder and CEO of CHS Events commented: “One of the trends we’re really excited by is the move from events as a place to escape the workplace, to a place to recreate it. In and among that though, we’re really zooming in on supporting individual event professionals to find their feet, progress their careers, and balance their worklife in an increasingly changing environment for events.”
The show was divided into an exhibition room and a reception/ staging area which was beautifully decorated in a Japanese Garden theme. This year the show was all in one area which really helped the atmosphere, organisers were able to maximise its space through using Silent Noize headsets so audience members and speakers could communicate on a private platform.
Using this tech, CHS 2023 hosted a packed schedule of talks in its Education Agenda which
ran continuously for delegates to dip in and out of. The highlights of these talks were, How I’m Still Learning how to Balance Work and Life, by Amy Cowan, who perfectly addressed the conference’s theme in an advisory analysis of nine to five working versus going freelance (more on page 53); Robert Kenward who tacked the recruitment crisis in an audience interactive talk titled The People First Business Recruitment Strategy; and Breaking Down Stigmas: Women in the Workplace by Nyomi Rose and Ăse Murphy-Morris who conversed about the on-going challenges women face in the event industry.
The exhibitor floor was thriving this year with venues, event tech, and experiences with many goodie bags and competitions throughout. Chester Zoo was launching its new space, The Square, just weeks before the show – and were seen handing out lion and tiger stuffed toys to celebrate the tiger cubs recently born at the zoo. Vue and Everyman cinemas added some wow factor promoting corporate events and parties, and holiday sites, Butlins and Alton Towers showed event profs how corporate events can deliver entertainment value.
CHS Leeds 2024 is set to return on 23rd April next year.