Following UKREiiF 2026 in May, the team has taken a moment to catch its breath and reflect on what was our biggest, boldest, and most successful event yet.

This year marked a real step forward for UKREiiF. From the appointment of our new Marketing Director, James Bywood, to a brand-new press and media area, as well as a host of exciting partnerships with media and PR organisations, UKREiiF 2026 raised the bar across the board.

But while visitors saw the packed programme, packed halls, and buzzing atmosphere, there was a dedicated team working behind the scenes to bring it all together. Every email sent, social post published, partnership secured, and last-minute challenge tackled helped make the event what it was.

Meet the Team Behind the Marketing

From planning campaigns months in advance to capturing those memorable UKREiiF moments on-site, our marketing team is involved in just about everything.

The team is made up of six marketers, backed by a fantastic group of freelancers and agency partners who help bring ideas to life throughout the year.

Whether it’s building year-round marketing strategies, creating content, managing social media or showcasing the best of UKREiiF, the team plays a huge part in making sure the event reaches and engages audiences across the UK.

To give you a peek behind the curtain, we caught up with Marketing Director James Bywood and Senior Marketing Executive Mya Driver and asked them three simple questions:

  1. What worked well this year?
  2. What was your personal highlight?
  3. What does UKREiiF need more of next year?

Here’s what they had to say…

What Worked Well?

As UKREiiF continues to grow, keeping everything running seamlessly across media, marketing and event delivery becomes even more important. One of this year’s standout successes was the way teams and partners worked together behind the scenes, creating a joined-up experience that felt effortless for delegates, journalists and stakeholders alike.

Reflecting on the event, Mya highlighted not only how smoothly everything came together, but also the value of the relationships built over six years of attending UKREiiF: “Having attended every UKREiiF for the past six years, I can honestly say this was my favourite yet. Everything ran incredibly smoothly, and it was fantastic to manage the press room and build on the relationships I’ve developed with attendees and journalists over the years. Working with South Facing is always a pleasure; their support for our team was outstanding, as ever. Seeing months of hard work come together so successfully is hugely rewarding, and hearing people say, ‘Oh, you’re the one who sends me all those emails,’ will never get old.”

From reconnecting with familiar faces to welcoming new contacts, the press room was a hive of activity throughout the event. Strong partnerships, particularly with South Facing, helped ensure the team could focus on creating valuable opportunities for journalists, speakers and delegates while keeping everything running smoothly behind the scenes.

The success of this approach was echoed by James, who reflected on the importance of bringing different disciplines together under a shared vision: “Getting marketers, content developers and PR managers pulling to one coherent plan across all three days of the event, not three teams running separate playbooks, but one plan the whole team believed in. That coherence is what made the event feel seamless from the outside, and it’s the thing I’m proudest of when I look back at the year.”

That shared focus was felt across every aspect of UKREiiF. By combining strong collaboration, trusted delivery partners and long-standing industry relationships, the team created an event experience that felt coordinated, welcoming and impactful, delivering value for delegates, exhibitors, partners and media from start to finish.

Personal Highlights

For many of the team, the best moments of UKREiiF 2026 weren’t just the big announcements or packed sessions, they were seeing months of hard work pay off and watching attendees embrace everything the event had to offer.

One standout moment for Mya Driver was the launch of Memento, UKREiiF’s brand-new facial recognition tool, which made it easier than ever for attendees to find and access photos from the event.

“A real highlight for me was launching Memento, our new facial recognition tool for 2026. It gave attendees a super easy way to find photos of themselves and have them at their fingertips within minutes of being taken. As a completely new feature, it was a bit of a leap into the unknown, but the rollout couldn’t have gone much better. The feedback was fantastic, and it quickly became one of those features that attendees genuinely loved using throughout the event.”

For Mya, there was nothing better than seeing people use a completely new feature and immediately get value from it. What started as an ambitious idea quickly became one of the most talked-about additions to the event.

For James, the highlight was a little less tangible but just as rewarding: watching a bold plan come together and seeing attendees fully buy into the experience.

“Honestly, it was watching the fear vanish. In the weeks before the event I’d been carrying real doubt about whether a three-day, multi-discipline plan, marketers, content people, PR all moving together, would actually hold together once we were in the room. Then it just worked.

And what replaced the doubt wasn’t relief so much as pleasure: watching so many people genuinely engage with and enjoy the event. That’s when it really hit home why UKREiiF pulls people back year after year.”

James’ reflection captures something many event organisers will recognise: those pre-event nerves that disappear the moment everything clicks. Seeing attendees engage, connect and enjoy the experience was a reminder of exactly what makes UKREiiF so special and why people keep coming back year after year.

What UKREiiF Needs More of in 2027

As UKREiiF looks ahead to 2027, the focus is on taking everything that worked this year and turning the dial up even further, from bigger partner engagement and smarter promotion to giving the team more room to shine.

For Mya, one of the biggest opportunities is making UKREiiF the place where the industry’s biggest announcements happen.

“I’d love to see our clients and partners get more involved by choosing UKREiiF as the destination and platform to announce their big news stories. Making UKREiiF the place to save your announcements and make a big splash is great.”

She’d also love to see partners get a little more creative with how they build excitement before the event.

“I’d also like to see our attendees and partners think outside of the box when it comes to pre-event marketing. Can they be using social media in a better way to promote their presence at the event?”

The more noise that can be created before people arrive in Leeds, the more momentum UKREiiF can generate across the industry. Whether it’s a major announcement, a clever social campaign or an unexpected collaboration, there’s plenty of scope for partners to make an even bigger impact.

For James, the biggest lesson from this year’s event was the power of trusting the team.

“Less of me trying to do everything myself. My instinct under pressure is to hold onto too much, but this year proved we have a team of genuinely confident people who are desperate to do their best, and when I let go and trusted them with the plan, it worked, often better than if I’d tried to control every piece of it myself. More of that next year: less of me in every corner, more space for the team to bring the same energy that makes people fall in love with UKREiiF in the first place.”

That trust, collaboration and shared passion are exactly what helped make UKREiiF 2026 such a success. Looking ahead, the ambition is simple: bring partners along for the journey, create even more buzz before the event begins, and keep empowering the people behind it all. If that happens, UKREiiF will continue to grow not just as an event, but as the place where the industry comes together to connect, collaborate and make things happen.