Marketing Week's Festival of Marketing takes over The Brewery, 52 Chiswell Street, on Wednesday 14 October. This year's theme is "Raise the bar". Marketing Week's agenda page lists more than 60 sessions across seven content streams, over 100 speakers and more than 1,000 marketers. Doors open at 08:00 and the day runs until 17:00.
Who's on
Sir John Hegarty opens the day with a keynote on practical ways to raise the bar. Professor Damian Hughes, co-host of the High Performance Podcast, and entrepreneur Spencer Matthews close it.
In between, Giffgaff's CMO Georgina Bramall and CTO Steve McDonald explain how they closed the gap between marketing and tech. Lloyds Banking Group CMO Suresh Balaji covers using AI experiments in brand storytelling, and Sainsbury's Mark Given talks about running tech, data and marketing together. Monzo's AJ Coyne, Saga's Hannah Fisher and Carwow's Ben Carter debate what it takes for marketing to reach its potential.
The session to watch
Three CEOs, Lysa Hardy of Caffè Nero, Paula MacKenzie of PizzaExpress and John Roberts of AO.com, will say what they want from their marketers. Marketing Week calls it a "not-to-miss session".
Worth knowing
Nothing is recorded or available on demand. Attendees get a Festival Wrapped summary afterwards instead. Sessions must be booked in advance and can fill up. The official hashtag is #FoM26.
Sources: Marketing Week: full Festival of Marketing agenda now live; Festival of Marketing FAQs; Festival of Marketing 2026 agenda; Festival of Marketing home page; Nova Brief analysis.