Take your seats for the latest Innovate Magazine

In the latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate magazine launched this week, we look ahead to the opening of Vaillant Live – the impressive new 3,500-capacity performance venue in Derby city centre.

In conversation with Faye Nixon, head of sales, marketing and guest experience and Marcus Sheehan, general manager, we learn of the importance to them from the outset of embedding local connections and Derby’s DNA into the venue, and we get a glimpse into the exciting experience which awaits visitors.

Audiences will be in for a treat, there’s no doubt and early reaction to the venue’s test events has been fantastic!

Vaillant Live is just one of many regeneration projects and developments transforming Derby city centre, bringing more people to visit and to live, work and study in the heart of the city.

This edition includes a useful reminder of just how much investment is going into those schemes, including the Victorian Market Hall due to re-open in Spring; Wavensmere Homes‘ transformation of the neglected Friar Gate Goods Yard site; and the £4m Eastern Gateway development by Derbion which will provide a new, vibrant welcome to the millions of passengers at Derby bus station.

The future is most definitely looking brighter for the city centre!

And nowhere is that more evident than at the Derby City Lab, which is busy conveying the message to locals that things are happening in Derby and encouraging them to take an active role in the city’s future.

Talking to Innovate magazine, John Forkin, managing director of Marketing Derby which operates the Lab as part of a partnership with Derby City Council, the University of Derby, Derbion, Clowes Developments and Lathams, explains the origin of the space, how over 15,000 visitors have already engaged with it and how it is winning their hearts and minds.

Away from the city centre, another building is being re-purposed. The former Ockbrook School is at the heart of a three-phase development plan by activity camp charity, Over The Wall to establish a permanent physical presence for the work it does organising breaks for young people living with serious, long-term health issues.

An interview with chief executive, Kevin Mathieson and David Williams, chair of Geldards, who is one of several local business leaders who has joined Over The Wall’s development board, sets out the scale of their ambitions.

Ambitions for growth and the success stories of two further local business leaders also feature in the magazine: Simon Rice, managing director of Queen’s Award-winning washroom hygiene innovators, HSG UK and Katy Upton, chief executive at IT firm, Fortitude Nicsa Global – who has been named by private equity giant LDC and The Times as one to watch.

Both companies have been named as Great Places to Work UK for their commitment to their people – an accolade of which they are both incredibly proud.

The Talking Business roundtable, sponsored by Nelsons, picks up the employment theme as a range of local businesses discuss the skills which businesses want and need in their workforce and some of the challenges they face.

Finally, John Forkin of Marketing Derby, provides a commentary on the role of places like Derby in delivering economic growth within a national policy framework and how one of the greatest pleasures in his role is the daily interaction with inspirational local businesses, investors and innovators which are the building blocks for that growth.

A digital version of the latest edition of Innovate magazine is now available on the Marketing Derby website, here.

To find out more about advertising opportunities in future editions of Innovate Magazine e-mail Andrew Lowe at andrew.lowe@marketingderby.co.uk.