London Tech Week is back! Hold on to your hard hats.The gathering ditched last year’s venue, the QEII, largely due to what it said was poor air conditioning. This year it moved to Olympia, but the grumbling continues.
The West London events hub is in the middle of an exciting £1.3 billion transformation into a retail and hospitality complex complete with bars, a hotel and a theatre. However, the opening ceremony is still months away and it remains a construction site.
Tech industry attendees had to navigate scaffolding, adrift in a sea of high-viz jackets. They arrived in a huge hall that was totally empty but for a little registration desk at one end. Mercifully, in adjoining rooms there were some actual stalls, seats and events taking place.
Guests were greeted with bare concrete floors throughout, featuring the occasional patch of duct tape and used chewing gum. The pared-down look was to reduce environmental waste from temporary carpeting, organisers said, as they handed out thousands of free tote bags no one asked for. Among the top speakers at the event was Monzo CEO TS Anil. The £4 billion challenger bank boss offered many interesting insights, Spy presumes, but he struggled to hear him under the intense drilling sound from builders which reverberated around the main stage. It left moderator Katie Prescott of the Times frantically summoning the event crew, urging them to stop the noise. “It’s lovely to be here at what we should probably now call the DIY expo,” Anil’s interviewee David Brear quipped.
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