Retail Week Live is more than just a retail conference. Foremost at Retail Week Live is two days of carefully curated content. 200+ speakers from some of the biggest names in the industry will give their insight on the industry today and in the future. There is so much more to see, do and people to make valuable connections with. Take a look at just some of the many things taking place at Retail Week Live 2020.
New digital content
We will build an entirely new dimension to the schedule which will explain the role of technology in retail strategy and bring a whole new layer of technology decision-makers to Retail Week Live for the first time.
Exhibition Tours
Georgie Barrat of The Gadget Show will be curating specialised tours of the exhibition floor, introducing delegates to exhibitors who are ahead of the curve. The tours are always very popular, and are a great way to see the technology reinventing and redefining the sector.
Gather at the Tour Meeting point at the following times - theres no need to register for a tour!
25th March
09.50- 10.15
11.40-12.10
13.15-13.45
15.50-16.20
26th March
10.45-11.15
12.55-13.25
14.25-15.00
Talking Tables
Our unique talking tables format creates the opportunity for you to connect with people facing the same specific challenges so that you can get out of the theory and into the detail.
To view times and locations, take a look at the Agenda
Live Late
On the evening of the 25th March join us for Live Late, the industry party that will give you serious FOMO if you don't attend! A perfect opportunity to do some serious networking, bust a groove (should you wish) and enjoy some down time with your colleagues and new connections after a jam-packed first day at Live! This is your chance to meet new people, build connections and establish long-lasting relationships that could make a real difference to your business, so don't miss it!
This is a fantastic sponsorship opportunity, so if you’d like to be aligned with the best industry party then contact Rachel.martin@ascential for more information.
App - Book Meetings
Our new app will include the ability for retailers and sponsors to book on-to-one meetings with interested, relevant people which means that you can control who you meet and make more valuable connections.
Start-Up matchmaking
Sometimes a beautiful relationship needs a helping hand. This is where Start-up Matchmaking comes in. Working with Co:Cubed we want to ensure you don’t miss out on the a key part of the show - the entrepreneurs and start-ups shaking up the industry.
Start-up Matchmaking at Retail Week Live will help connect retailers and brands with a passion for innovation to stellar start-ups with solutions that fit your needs.
How does the Matchmaking work?
All you need to do is give Co:Cubed your innovation goals and they’ll match you with the start-ups shaping the industry. Meet with 5 revolutionary start-ups in 30 minutes.
How do I join the Matchmaking sessions?
You can connect with Co:Cubed ahead of Retail Week Live who can organise you a bespoke session. Or you can join one of the existing sessions onsite and you will be able to find out the times on the app.
If you are interested in start-up matchmaking please email louise.barrass@co-cubed.com for your bespoke session to be arranged
Meeting Lounge
New for 2020 we are introducing the Meeting Lounge.
Retailers and brands know that they cannot keep up with the pace of change alone so at Live we want to ensure companies can meet to discuss strategic partnerships.
Using our app sponsors, start-ups, retailers and brands can arrange 20-minute meetings in the Meeting Lounge. The app will recommend people for you based on your preferences provided during registration to ensure you have tailored and specific meetings.
*Please note access to the meeting tool on the app is reserved for retailer pass holders, sponsors and start-ups only.
Experiences
Treat yourself to some pampering! From cupcakes to shoe shines, a massage parlour to a nail bar. Retail Week Live is most certainly more than just a conference!
Lola’ Cupcakes – We are delighted that Lola’s Cupcakes will be partnering with us again to provide you with a plethora of sweet treats from brownies, to cupcakes, and rainbow cakes
Pall Mall Barbers – Have yourself looking meeting ready with a free haircuts and shave
London Shoe Shine - London Shoe Shine is also back again for 2020 – make sure your shoes are looking tip top by taking a seat in their pop up shop. You also never know who you might be sat next to and could meet your next business contact. Or use the London Shoe Shine area to have a meeting.
Urban – Take some “me” time in breaks with free Massages & Manicures with urban
Botanical Labs – Drinks of the future! Grab some to fuel your learning
Dev-Ops Exchange
Working with DevOps Exchange, Live is delighted to announce that we will be hosting one of their famous DevOps Exchange Meetups on the evening of 25th March in the Main Stage from 6pm.
If you're a DevOps, Operations or Development person in any location, interested in hearing war stories surrounding DevOps from like-minded individuals, then you need to join the Retail Week Live Meetup! All attendees of Retail Week Live are welcome to attend.
DevOps Exchange is the world's largest Meetup for the DevOps & Open Source community. With over 10,000 members and communities in London, Edinburgh, Bournemouth, Manchester & Barcelona, DevOps Exchange brings together industry-leading speakers with local DevOps practitioners and enthusiasts for monthly events.
The Retail Week Live DevOps Exchange will feature talks from Worldpay, Skyscanner & Ziglu.
Rashi Saxena - Building and Embracing Cultural Change to make DevOps a mindset.
Many companies today struggle with adapting to change and disruption. Rashi will be sharing the story about the transformational journey she led for DevOps at the international payments giant WorldPay; a Journey from utterly tedious manual build & deployment process to fully automated one. This talk will cover; Automation, People and Culture, and the significant role they play in successful transition and sustainment of DevOps practice as a mindset!
Oliver Crawford - Detecting security issues before the stack is processed in AWS.
As you can imagine, at Skyscanner engineers perform thousands of deployments a day, and hundreds of Cloud infrastructure changes. In this talk, Oliver will introduce how they make it possible for all the engineers to deploy easily infrastructure changes in AWS and will demonstrate how to prevent Security mistakes in that process.
Matt Turner - Reproducible builds and so much more with Bazel
Originally a software engineering and with 7 years experience in Infrastructure, Matt has a wealth of experience to draw upon as Head of Platform at Ziglu, the bank challenging the challengers. Ziglu has built an account that breaks all the currency barriers – geographic and technological. So what IS going on behind the scenes? Matt is here to share some insight into the UK's hottest FinTech.
Sign up now:
https://www.meetup.com/pro/devops-exchange/
Make your Pledge
What is the Retail Week Live Pledge Board?
At Retail Week Live 2020, we want to celebrate the fantastic initiatives that organisations and individuals are spearheading to drive social and environmental change. Everyone in the retail ecosystem is doing their part, whether as an individual or a company, to create a positive impact on the planet, and it’s about time we shout about.
Whether it’s ‘I pledge to carry my reusable cup with me wherever I go,’ or ‘I pledge to switch to a bamboo toothbrush,’ or company wide ‘we will reduce plastic waste by 50% in 3 years’ or ‘we will use ethically sourced cotton by 2025’ – we’ll be asking delegates to pin their pledges to the Board for all to see. The aim at the end of the two days is to have a great mix of pledges that we can shout about on social media to create a really positive buzz.
Tribe Meet-Ups
Each session on our agenda has been assigned to a Tribe which allows you to not only create a personalised agenda, but also meet with likeminded individuals from across the ecosystem.
Each of the 5 tribes have one Meet-Up where you get to meet these fellow tribespeople to discuss any challenges, ideas, or brainstorming for the future.
Which tribe do you belong to? Find out here, and also view the Meet-Up times
Debates
The debate format is much-loved by our delegates - and a great way to extract some amazing learnings and insights from some flammable topics which are keeping you all awake at night.
One debate is on the classic build vs. buy debate. 2 teams of 2 amazing speakers will be going head to head to put forward the reasons for building and buying digital product.
The other is on the future of the fashion industry – as we see the circular economy growing, what does this mean for the future of the fashion industry? Is there still hope for the fashion industry, are there ways in which it can become more sustainable? Or does the shift of new models like rental and re-use spell the end of the fashion industry as we know it?