Attending Ideas Fest 2025
What a time we had attending Ideas Fest 2025. This incredible business festival really does live up to its hype and recognition as ‘Glastonbury for businesses’.
What is Ideas Fest?
Ideas Fest is an annual business event which runs over two days in Hertfordshire. Ideas Fest is the ultimate festival for business founders, with over 4,000 business professionals coming together to connect, innovate and inspire.
The event is designed for business leaders, founders, investors, creatives and entrepreneurs. It has some of the most successful professionals in attendance.
Talks vary widely, with subjects such as entrepreneurship, inspiration, well-being, investment, networking and much more.
This hugely successful event led to £4 million in deals in 2024, highlighting its importance across a variety of industries.
What was on at Ideas Fest 2025?
This year, Owen, Growth and Acquisition Partner, and Kayleigh, Client Relationship Partner, attended the business festival to showcase Granby’s exceptional brand fulfilment services.
Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy
Ideas Fest 2025 opened with a captivating session by Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy, covering Inside the Mind of a Marketing Mastermind. During this insightful session, Rory provided information on how a small change can create a huge shift in how we think, act and buy.
The conversation, led by Grace Andrews, founder of The Social Climber, was extremely thought-provoking.
Rory has spent a large part of his career focusing on psychology and behaviour. Over the years, he has focused on identifying ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour, allowing businesses to increase sales and drive growth.
Piers Linney, Former investor on Dragons’ Den
Piers Linney, Executive Chairman & Co-founder of Implement AI, was in attendance at Ideas Fest 2025. He provided some extremely valuable insights into AI and how it can support businesses. Some of Piers’ sessions covered the following topics.
- AI: Grow Your Workforce, Not Your Payroll
- Creating AI Super Users & Executive Productivity
- Building an AI Sales Team
- Voice Agents in Action
- Finding Hidden Opportunities with AI
All of these interesting topics gave businesses practical insights into the adoption of AI agents, sales enablement and executive productivity. Piers showcased AI as a fantastic tool for businesses to refine their current setups and scale with ease.
Piers has an interesting background and has supported businesses across a wide variety of industries with AI implementation. He is also the Co-Founder of Atherton Bikes and has been recognised for his diversity and inclusion efforts.
Simon Squibb, HelpBnk
Simon Squibb, Founder of HelpBnk, led the way at Ideas Fest as an inspiring entrepreneur. Simon’s Dreamland area was an all-day hub at the event, where guests could go any time to network with others. This Dreamland space was the heart of the festival for creativity, connectivity and founder support.
Simon Alexander Ong joined Simon for an insightful conversation around big dream energy. Both entrepreneurs shared their unique perspectives as founders and how they turned their dreams into reality. The conversation was centred around the power that high energy has in business success.
Simon Squibb is passionate about empowering individuals to follow their dreams and kickstart their businesses. Simon Alexander Ong is an award-winning author focusing on wellness and well-being through his work. Together, they shared some very inspiring stories.
Arian Kalantari, LADbible Group
Arian Kalantari, Co-Founder of LADbible Group, was joined by Hugh Chappell, Serial Entrepreneur, Advisor & Angel Investor, who also helped to launch Apple in the UK. Both entrepreneurs were interviewed by Frankie James, founder of the prestigious Great British Entrepreneur Awards and Ideas Fest, to cover the topic of: What We’ve Taught Each Other: A Candid Conversation.
This powerful conversation highlighted two very different journeys to success. They discussed what it means to be a modern entrepreneur and provided insights into mentorships. The discussion was incredibly thought-provoking, as they shared more information about leadership, risk, resilience and the most important lessons they’ve learnt in business.
Arian and Hugh discussed what’s changed, what still matters and how founders can bridge the gap between generations.
Attending the event
This business event is one like no other. Here’s what Owen and Kayleigh said about attending the event.
“We left Ideas Fest 2025 with a notebook full of learnings and inspiration from some incredible speakers. We also had the opportunity to connect with some incredible entrepreneurs who are building, growing, and thinking differently in their industries.”
It was great to be a part of this event, soak up the atmosphere and connect with so many incredible people.
