The Big Picture Conference | The Big Picture

Repurposing Retail Space for Leisure Use

TBP held its annual conference at The Everyman cinema, Met Quarter, Liverpool on Tuesday 17th September. The sold out conference was a success for speakers and attendees. With an impressive array of speakers and panellists the conference tackled the current issue facing many Local Authorities and property developers or owners on how to repurpose the high street.

TBP look at more than just the impact or opportunity for cinema and the conference reflected this with presentations from the fields of Property Development. Architecture, Local Authority, Cinema Analytics, Cinema Operator and F&B. TBP will soon announce the date for their 2020 conference.

Our Speakers

Mike Thomson, Partner, The Big Picture:

Mike opened the conference with an brief insight into the current success of the thriving UK film and cinema market, highlighting the continued growth in audiences, the resilience of film as entertainment and diversity of modern cinemas replacing, often in the high street instead of large out of town multiplexes.

John Sullivan, Executive Director, The Big Picture:

John presented TBP view of cinema globally an specifically the UK, outlining why a cinema is art of the solution for high streets, what the benefits are and how TBP assess the potential. He also demonstrated the diversity and how cinemas are evolving to meet the current consumer demands.

Naz Parkar, Director of Growth and Housing, Kirklees Council

Naz presented Kirklees council’s 10-year blueprint to reimagine and repurpose Huddersfield town centre into a more family friendly place where people will not only work and shop but want to relax, socialise and enjoy leisure pursuits. Whilst embracing its heritage the council is embarking on a bold transition to bring back green spaces and better infrastructure to benefit the long term future for all inhabitants.

Mark Robinson, Property Director and Co-Founder, Ellandi / President, Revo

Mark gave an inventive keynote presentation challenging everyone connected with repurposing their high streets, towns and cities to understand WHY they are doing it. Having a clear purpose and vison for the project rather than just creating another identikit town centre. As usual, Mark got everyone present thinking!

David Leonard BA(Hons) BArch(Hons) RIBA, Director, Leonard Design Architects

John Morgan, RIBA, Director, Leonard Design Architects

David & John gave an illuminating presentation on not only the challenges facing architects in repurposing high streets but the fiscal challenges too. Too often what is needed to truly re-invent a centre cannot be realised du to property and share values, and John illustrated how this can be achieved with some clever planning and long term thinking.

David Hancock , Research Director, Film and Cinema, IHS Markit / President, European Digital Cinema Forum

David gave everyone a global view of cinema, with analysis of different markets, giving context to the UK’s recent growth. He also outlined where is sits with the experiential leisure sector, and the reality of the challenge of other content providers such as Netflix and cinema’s resilience. He also highlighted how the UK is the first mature market to see the total of cinemas and screens built, increasing.

Nick Gregory, PopCity

Richard Sweet, Space Revolution / PopCity

Many town and centres look to other locations for inspiration, which is good but not if simply copied. You need to tap into the local talent and culture to create an offer that is relevant to the location.

Combining property and F&B backgrounds and experience enabled Nick and Richard to create a whole new F&B concept in the heart of Leeds city centre which they took time to talk us through the venture.

Crispin Lilly, CEO, Everyman

As CEO over the fast growing Everyman Cinema chain, Crispin took us back through time to show how the cinemas had started, the challenges they faced and how they have evolved into a world class cinema circuit with exciting future plans. Everyman is one of the exciting challenger cinema brands fulfilling a need in key towns and cities not met by larger multiplexes.