This week’s Wednesday Wisdom comes from Freya Gallagher-Jones, Events Manager at Norwich BID, who joined the team in September 2025 after a decade working across the arts and culture events world.
Freya’s role sits at the intersection of business and culture, spanning large-scale experiential city events like Norwich’s Christmas activations and Norwich Summer Sessions (delivered in partnership with NORCA), curated campaigns such as Food and Drinks Week, and a full programme of B2B events including BID Breakfasts and the Annual Conference. It’s a role that means bridging sectors, calendars and ideas to help Norwich feel vibrant, welcoming, and worth visiting again and again.
For Freya, making city-wide events work comes down to three things: collaboration, planning, and communication. Partners and businesses are brought in early, licensing and logistics are handled behind the scenes with the council, police and security teams, and a marketing team the largest team at Norwich BID, ensuring the message lands with visitors and stakeholders alike. It’s an approach built on enhancing what Norwich already offers rather than competing with it, filling gaps rather than duplicating the city’s existing events calendar.
Freya’s advice for anyone running an event in Norwich is refreshingly simple: work with the city, not in isolation, and keep the visitor experience front and centre. And, crucially have fun with it. Because if you’re enjoying the planning, chances are your attendees will feel that too.
Tell us about your role at Norwich BID and the events you deliver across the city?
I am still reasonably new to the Norwich BID team, having joined in September 2025 after working the last 10 years in the arts and culture events world. In my few months here at Norwich BID, I have thus far learned that it is a great place to play in the intersection of business and culture, working creatively across various sectors to support a bustling and thriving city in Norwich. My position as Events Manager focuses largely on two areas of our work; firstly, our experiential large-scale city events like Christmas activations, Norwich Summer Sessions (in partnership with NORCA) and our curated campaign events like our Food and Drinks Weeks; and secondly, our business-to-business events such as our BID Breakfasts and Annual Conference.
Our experiential work focuses on delivering and supporting events that bring energy into the city centre and encourage people to spend more time here. A big part of what I do is working collaboratively with our wonderful internal team, businesses, venues, partners and stakeholders, to ensure events are enjoyable to audiences but also have a positive impact on footfall and trading. Every event is ultimately about having a go at bridging the gap between sectors, activity calendars and ideas to help make Norwich feel vibrant, welcoming and worth visiting again and again.
Our B2B work is largely about supporting businesses in what they do, encouraging inward investment and creating events that aim to help local organisations trade as sustainably, safely and efficiently as possible. These can look like events that help keep businesses informed on operational best practice like HR or budgets but can also look like working with education and learning organisations to support careers and opportunities.
Norwich city centre hosts everything from live free music and street performance with Norwich Summer Sessions to Norwich Wine Week – what goes into making a city-wide event work?
Our city-wide events rely on three key main things: collaboration, clear planning, and strong communication.
Firstly, collaboration is essential, engaging partners and businesses early, getting buy-in, and making sure they can actively participate is key for our work. The more businesses and organisations that are involved, the more the event feels like a true city-wide experience. Norwich is an incredible city with a wealth of amazing expertise, and so we take the opportunity to collaborate as often as we can. For example, Norwich Summer Sessions is a true partnership with Norwich Community Arts (NORCA) who ensure our annual programme is an eclectic mix of local talent and nationally significant acts. Our Food and Drinks weeks rely on the expertise and enthusiasm of our hospitality sector here in the city, who consistently deliver outstanding menus, events and activations as part of our experience weeks. Collaboration is integral to everything we do.
Secondly, logistics and planning is vital. From licensing and safety to layout and accessibility – there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to make it feel seamless to the public. We have really strong relationships with the council, police and security teams to keep our events safe and compliant. We also have to consider the wider events ecology within the city in our planning – our work is designed to enhance the city’s offer, not compete, so we work closely with other local organisations to ensure our work fits within the annual schedule and aims to fill gaps in content rather than replicate the remarkable events already happening here.
Finally, communication ties everything together. Our marketing team is the largest section of our workforce at Norwich BID, and that is because their work is absolutely paramount to the work we do. Whether that’s promoting the event to visitors or keeping stakeholders informed, making sure the message is clear and consistent is what helps drive engagement and attendance. They also ensure events have a lasting digital legacy, working with creative partners to produce high-quality content. This ranges from collaborative video campaigns like Myths about English Wine (part of our Virgin Wines x Kona x Norwich Wine Week partnership), to storytelling projects such as Twenty Stories. One City. The City of Stories. Getting the word out about both our work and that of our partners is one of the biggest pieces of the planning puzzle.
How do you measure the impact of events on Norwich’s businesses and footfall?
We look at a combination of data and direct feedback. Footfall data is a key indicator for us, we can compare event days to baseline periods to understand the uplift.
But numbers alone don’t tell the full story. We also gather feedback from businesses to understand how events translate into sales, customer engagement and overall sentiment. Social media reach, engagement and wider PR coverage also help us understand how far the event is resonating beyond the city. It’s really about building a full picture; combining quantitative data with qualitative insights.
What’s the biggest challenge of organising events in a city centre environment?
One of the biggest challenges is balancing the needs of a busy, working city with the demands of an event. You’re operating in a live environment where businesses still need to function as normal, and public spaces are shared. There are also practical challenges like weather, logistics and access, which can all have a significant impact. Norwich is a particularly historic and quirky city, and one that is, as Norfolkian’s say ‘on the huh’, so considering how to activate the space with its cobbles and uneven camber is always an adventure – though we wouldn’t have it any other way! Ultimately, it’s about being adaptable. Even with the best planning, city-centre events require you to think on your feet and respond quickly to changing circumstances.
What’s your one piece of wisdom for anyone looking to run an event in Norwich?
Start with collaboration and keep your audience at the heart of everything. Work with the city rather than in isolation, we are better together and when you partner with businesses, venues and local organisations you can create something that feels joined-up and really impactful.
And always think about the experience from a visitor’s perspective. If it’s easy to engage with, enjoyable, and gives people a reason to stay longer, then you’re already setting yourself up for success. Finally, I would say have fun – if you are having fun in your event planning, it will probably transpose to attendees!
Follow Freya and the Norwich BID on Instagram and visit Norwich BID – Norwich Business Improvement District to see more information and learn more about their events.
