TechNext Festival’s ambition is to be a Good Festival with ‘for good’ being a core value that runs through the full events programme. This will ensure the festival focuses on inclusivity, diversity, accessibility, and sustainability, protecting our planet and creating a welcoming experience for all.

Initiatives that we have in place include:

Focus on inclusivity & diversity

At TechNExt, fostering a welcoming and inclusive festival experience is paramount. We believe everyone deserves to feel a sense of belonging in the tech industry, regardless of their background. To achieve this, we offer funded tickets and targeted outreach programmes to ensure all voices are heard and represented. We also actively strive for balanced representation among our speakers and attendees, creating a space where diverse perspectives can flourish.

• We offer 90 fully funded tickets for the Main Stage conference and the Festival party, to allow those who may not usually get access to such events a chance to be part of it.
• Funding is available to help organisations afford to host fringe events, and make them free to attend.
• Funds are available to schools attending the challenge celebration event to cover their transport costs.
• We are encouraging our sponsors and partners to donate their unwanted ticket allocation or pay it forward to provide tickets to others.
• We are focused on achieving a balanced representation across gender, race, class, disability, and other protected characteristics. Read more about why this matters here.
• We are reaching out to underrepresented communities to broaden our audiences (Women in Tech and Asian Business Connections).
• We are offering group booking discounts for FE Colleges enabling them to bring student groups as delegates and share their thoughts as a blog post event.
• Dynamo North East members receive a 20% discount on all curated event tickets.

Accessibility matters‍

Accessibility is another core value we hold dear. We understand that everyone experiences the world differently, so we offer a buddy system for those who might benefit from extra support navigating the festival. Additionally, a quiet room is available for anyone who needs a break from the stimulation. Finally, we ensure accessibility features are in place at all events, so everyone can participate fully.

• We offer a buddy system for curated events where an organisation or person can be allocated to those attendees who would like one, to help them make the most of the festival experiences.
• We have a quiet room at the key curated events to allow delegates to get away from the main spaces if they’d like to.
• We will have subtitling available, and a hearing loop as standard at the Main Stage conference.
• We are carrying out an accessibility audit as part of our risk assessments for each of the curated event venues.
• We will create a familiarisation walkaround video for the Main Stage and Tech Talent Live events to help attendees familiarise themselves with the venue and event layout ahead of arrival.
• All curated events are fully accessible for wheelchair users and we have asked all our fringe organisers to ensure their venues are fully accessible, and if they can’t be, to flag this with us in advance so we can label them as such or support them to find an alternate venue.
• WelcoME app and system is in place at the Main Stage conference venue so delegates with additional needs can make contact with the venue in advance of arrival.

Environmentally conscious

Minimising our environmental impact is a key aspect of our Good Festival Ambition. We take responsibility for our footprint and are committed to sustainable practices. This includes tracking and reporting on the festival’s carbon footprint, constantly seeking ways to reduce it. We strive to implement eco-friendly practices wherever possible, ensuring the future of technology is bright not just for innovation, but for the planet as well.

• We use ‘Trace’ by Isla to track and report on our event carbon across the week’s curated events.
• We ensure that we don’t over order catering, and we will donate any leftover food to food banks and/or recycle food waste working with local partner Gap Global anaerobic digestion plant to create biogas.
• No single use plastics or any other single use materials will be used across all events and recycling points will be available at all main venues.
• Signage and print is limited and will be heavily digital.
• All food at curated events is vegetarian or vegetarian by default to reduce carbon.
• We have chosen central locations accessible by public transport for all curated events.
• We are offering zero credit Nexus ‘pop’ cards to any attendee to allow cheaper travel via public transport across Tyne & Wear.
• We are encouraging fringe organisers to live steam or record and share recordings post event.

In year 1 the festival’s carbon from curated events was 35 tCO2e and we decided, as an ethical offset, to donate the equivalent carbon credit value to a North East environmental charity, Groundwork North East & Cumbria for their nature-based solutions programme.

This year we plan to reduce the carbon this year for the curated programme and we have also expanded our ask to fringe organisers to provide travel data for those attending their events to understand the scale of our impact and audience travel from the whole festival.