MAD//UpNorth kicked off today (26 February) promising to champion the brands, businesses and agencies in the north of England.
Anticipation for the two-day event was high, with delegates queueing down the street to get in as the doors opened at 10am, leading to long delays to enter the venue.
It is expected that around 4,000 visitors will attend, including some of the advertising and marketing industries’ leading figures, discussing the latest media trends and innovations.
Staged at Manchester’s Factory International, the theme is ‘What sets us apart’, and aims to celebrate the North’s growing marketing scene.
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It is the first time the event has been staged in Manchester and follows the success of MAD//Fest, which was launched in London in 2018. The event has since grown to become the UK’s largest brand conference and last year it was acquired by marketing group Ingenuity Group for an undisclosed sum.
The Manchester event will include 150 speakers, including Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland, the Co-op’s Kenyatte Nelson and The Very Group’s Jessica Myers.
Also taking to the stage will be comedian and writer Lucy Beaumont, former Manchester United footballer Gary Nevile and Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook.
3 Comments. Leave new
The event was utter shambles! Queued outside for 3 hours in the freezing cold, despite arriving before the event started and having tickets! Ended up leaving the queue out of frustration and needing to warm up.
I completely forgot about this event and had really wanted to attend—possibly even present! I work for a Mystery Shopping agency based in Manchester, helping brands elevate their Customer Experience through real customer insights and also support Brand Ambassadors (for example) with our bespoke CRM system.
Next time, I’ll make sure to be there! In the meantime, if you’re interested in Customer Experience, Mystery Shopping, or compliance audits (think brand reps/ambassadors), let’s connect.
Drop me a message or email me at Luke@aba.co.uk—always happy to chat!
I’m surprised the only complaint is the queues. I went on day 2 and was in straight away and oblivious of the previous days chaos. But it was still way too oversubscribed and i only managed to see 2 of the dozen talks I signed up to. The set up was a joke, “stages” right next to each other with no walls to seperate them..just seats on the floor, with food vans cooking in between. You couldn’t hear a thing. A number of headphones were provided but not enough and many people were turned away.
The WiFi went down frequently so you couldn’t even view the app to see what else you might be able to get in to. I don’t go to these events to be sold to, but this was 100% the focus here and I feel really sorry for anyone speaking outside of the main stage as there was no respect for the content they were delivering and worked hard on.
Many talks ran over in time, and because it was over capacity it took a good 10 minutes to fight your way through the one way system they eventually put in place so there was no way you could see back to back talks. A real shambles.
By about noon, I’d say about 75% of people remaining were sponsors, had bought a “picnic table” or were speakers. I gave up at 2pm.
£500 a ticket, 3 hour queues, £15 burgers, all talks oversubscribed, many rooms shut off as capacity was reached as it felt dangerous…jokers