Brilliant Bamboo Summit at The Goods Yard

The PHPS events team staged the Brilliant Bamboo Summit 2025 in the mightily impressive Vaults at the Goods Yard. This lofty, cathedral-like, protected building has been imaginatively regenerated by Capital and Centric and is the first of their completed projects in North Staffordshire.

And what a dramatic, inspiring and impressive venue it made for the Bamboo Summit, which we were so thrilled to support the organisation with, as we’ve been invested in their success from the outset. They’re an organisation creating projects that use bamboo as a material for growth, imagination and greener futures for people in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire and the planet, and it’s fantastic to be part of an event that’s attracting interest from all over the country.

We’re no stranger to working with Capital and Centric either, as back in June we worked with them, Appetite and Arts Keele to stage the Art Slam event as Astley Place in Newcastle under Lyme, another of their ambitious regeneration projects.

let’s start the conversation...

THE OUTCOME

The Vaults is an inspiring space, but technically tricky in terms of ensuring every delegate sat in conference theatre style had line of sight to the speakers. Rather than seeing the huge brick columns as obstructions, PH Production Services incorporated them to display screens, a practical solution with dramatic visual impact. The afternoon breakout workshops were well accommodated within the venue, for three working groups to meet separately within the space, and perfectly incorporated a towering bamboo structure.

PROJECT TIMINGS

The summit took place on Friday 10 October 2025 with 100 delegates in attendance and a further 125 joining online. In addition to the last minute search for a suitable venue, conference set up also had an unexpected challenge – a huge crane to work around and an “out of service” lift, which the team managed to successfully overcome. All hands were on deck (rather than on the a/v decks!) to manually maneuver all the equipment into place within the allowed set up time frame.

WHAT WE DID

PH Production Services worked with Brilliant Bamboo to deliver full production of their collaborative project with Orit Azaz and the Bamboo in the UK Group: UK Bamboo Summit 2025. This was the fifth Summit, and first meeting of delegates from all over UK and further afield to Stoke-on-Trent. We had scoped one civic venue, which had to change at the last minute, so together we imagined an event for a venue used for the very first time: The Vaults at The Goods Yard by Capital & Centric. It was full production AV and technical running of the event which included full service live streaming, and speakers joining online. PHPS provided all audio visual equipment, connectors, installation of kit, presentation screens, zoom links, internet, and all the skilled technicians to operate kit, to make sure everything ran smoothly on the day.

HERE’S WHAT THEY SAID

“PHPS is our go to team, they have all of the knowledge, access to professional team to run the production of the event and most importantly can understand the vision and purpose of the events, and deliver with high production standards which we believe are second to none. Our new venue was tricky, but with the team from PHPS we made sure that challenging eyelines, AV support for presentations was available throughout the venue making sure it felt smooth and that the delegates could enjoy the event, rather than think about the site or be distracted not being able to see, hear or participate. The online delegate experience, was an un-promoted element of event, however, the seamless streaming saw 125 unique viewers of the conference from all over the world. Making sure our impact and reach was maximised in the circumstances. All our international speakers felt supported and their presentations went well. Brilliant Bamboo would absolutely work with PHPS and recommend them to others for their conferencing production services. I believe they deliver beyond expectation.” Gemma Thomas, Director

STORY VISUALS

At The Goods Yard Vaults for its first event the fifth UK Bamboo Summit.

From Empty Halls to an Inflatable Church: Bringing 3Generate to Life at the NEC

Elizabeth reflects on her behind the scenes experience of The Methodist Church's 3 Generate Children and Youth Assembly at the NEC.