Ignite Liverpool 57
From Aidrian’s smashing shirt to an abundance of Kates, we spent an evening talking all things analogue and community at Ignite Liverpool.
Ignite Liverpool is a popular mid-week, evening event that brings together people from all walks of life. Speakers are invited to talk about hobbies, passions, projects and essentially anything that isn’t a work elevator pitch. You present 20 slides in 5 minutes and tonight we learned the secret recipe to a brilliantly memorable presentation.
We’ve been to Ignite and presented before. In fact, tonight was our 5th time. Seeing the familiar faces of the volunteer team: Neil, Dan, Lydia and Adrian, we instantly relaxed about our impending moment in the spotlight.
Finding out we were up first set the nerves away again! The audience is always so welcoming and warm. There’s raptuous applause and whooping throughout as presentations covered everything from shrinking Toblerone to the real Sydney Opera House architect and why Egypt authorities refused to return a near-priceless American coin!
We kick started the night talking about analogue culture and community - of course. Our love for all things 90s nostalgia, from phone boxes to Blind Date (peak Saturday night telly in our humble opinion) and the rise of hobbymaxxing! We are obsessed with community growing and a sense of belonging.
The evening also gave us an opportunity to shout about a whole host of impactful and truly fantastic people and groups in and around Liverpool who are cultural and community architects in their own right .Baytree Cookery Academy,Girls on the Go and The Reader, to name a few.
As community noticeboards begin to fill up, waitlists grow for music listening events and XL tote bag sales go through the roof, we can’t help but think events like Ignite are where the cultural gold is. Meeting people who are curious, open to new points of view and thinking, and actively want to see you succeed? Beats the crap out of doomscrolling in the heat of your livingroom, eh?
There’s also part of the event where you can present a 60 second pitch. So, if you have an event or project and you want people to get involved, get up there! Which is exactly what we did! Props again to Ellie, (twice in two weeks she’s risen to the challenge) and shared our ‘Careers Confessions’ pitch, to add your voices to our ‘Get In’ education workshop delivery. We love to see it!
Five things we learned at tonight’s Ignite Liverpool event
1 - The architect of the Sydney Opera House based the iconic roof design on the shapes he created while peeling an orange.
2 - A man who designed shoes for Princess Diana once owned the most valuable coin in the world.
3 - Artists in the city need our help because greedy property investors keep turfing them out of the very communities they’ve created. More here.
4 - People in 17th century West Derby, Liverpool decided why we can’t easily get to Skelmersdale in 2026. Cheers!
5 - The secret for the perfect five minute presentation? Choose a topic you love.
Go sign up for the next Ignite, we’ll cheer for you!
Thank you to all the Ignite team, and the audience for a fantastic evening, especially in the heat. And to the lovely staff at Lime Street Central for hosting us all.
