Manchester’s Night Time Economy Adviser Sacha Lord speaks about the city-region’s ‘booming hospitality industry’ at Northern Restaurant and Bar 2024

Thousands of hospitality professionals have descended on Manchester for a two-day conference celebrating the food and drink industry.

Transcript

00:00 "If I say something, just get behind me please, I need as much support as possible. It sometimes

00:04 feels quite lonely with your head above the parapet, but when I can see the industry behind

00:08 me galvanising, then it makes the world of difference."

00:11 Thousands of hospitality professionals have descended on Manchester for a two-day conference

00:17 celebrating the food and drink industry. Northern Restaurant and Bar 2024 returned

00:22 to Manchester Central Convention Centre on the 12th and 13th of March for an event bringing

00:27 together operators and suppliers from across the North. Alongside the hundreds of stalls,

00:32 the event had an extensive line-up of live demo sessions and keynote theatre speakers,

00:37 including night-time economy advisor for Greater Manchester, Sasha Lord.

00:41 "We're here today at this exhibition, people have come across the whole of the UK

00:44 and they're all talking about what is happening in Greater Manchester. I said it on stage before,

00:49 if you'd said to me five years ago, we're going to have the Chanel Global Fashion Show. In the

00:54 Northern Quarter, I'd have said you're off your rocker. MTV Europe's come here, got Co-op Live,

00:59 massive events are choosing to relocate in Manchester and you're looking at other city

01:03 regions now. I kind of feel a bit embarrassed because they're all coming to Manchester.

01:07 So I think it's down to the leadership, you know, the vision of our leaders, Andy Burnham,

01:12 Bev Craig, people like that, that they've actually understood the importance of events,

01:16 hospitality, night-time economy and it's now paying dividends. We take inspiration from many

01:21 other cities like Berlin, you know, I love Berlin, but that's not the level. We want to beat it.

01:27 It sounds really cocky, the Sunday Times called us the UK's capital of nightlife. Well,

01:32 we want to be Europe's capital of nightlife, that's where we want to be. We are busy,

01:36 you know, Greater Manchester is very busy, we're outperforming all the other city regions,

01:40 but although they're busy, a lot of the operators are actually just breaking even and we know the

01:45 reasons why that, especially utility bills. So between now and the next general election,

01:50 I'm almost going on an election footing myself because if the polls are right, it looks like

01:55 Labour are going to get in the next election and I want the Chancellor, the new Chancellor,

02:00 Rachel Reeves, to say, yeah, she's going to commit to a reduction in VAT. That would be

02:04 the barrier, that would be the buffer zone that we need for the industry to survive.

02:09 I would say to people, look, if you're in the fortunate position, because I know cost of living

02:14 is there now, we know there's a crisis, but if you are lucky enough to be able to go out,

02:18 please do one thing, please support your local independent businesses. The independent bit is

02:24 so important, those family-run businesses, they're the ones that we need to help because

02:29 the big chains, they can go to the banks, they can go to the shareholders,

02:33 the small family-run independent cars, so they're the ones you want to support.