More Than Just Training: The AMA Conference 2025

Attention please, this is your final call for the Mobius express to: the AMA Conference in Edinburgh! This is your Senior Distribution Manager George and Marketing Account Executive Juliet who will be guiding you through this year’s conference and its big theme: Amplify.

Join us on our journey to discover what the arts and culture sector are talking about in 2025, as we check out some stops along the way and share our many LNERnings. Our journeying is starting out in sunny London and we will be calling at…

King’s Cross
Commencing our journey with a keynote from AMA CEO, Cath Hume, this year’s theme of Amplify is all about uplifting the sector and bolstering the regal status of marketers across the culture sector. While attacks on EDI might give us lots to be cross about, knowing our audiences’ needs will help us roll out change with some much needed conviction.

Stevenage
Among his many achievements, Steve Abbott produced the iconic movie Brassed Off, and we really enjoyed hearing Chloe Dyson-Asher and Jess Wilson from Brass Bands England talk about how they’ve worked to bring the form to new audiences, including their campaign for hybrid drag/brass band concert, Kinky Toots. It was inspiring to hear how creative thinking, passion, and great puns can come together to share the joy and love of performance, sometimes between two unlikely groups.

Peterborough
Peterborough is famous for being the burial place of Mary Queen of Scots, and we literally kicked off our trip by remembering our own Mary Queen of Stops, Mary Earps, whose successor Hannah Hampton helped England in a cracking 4-0 victory over the Netherlands in the Euros group stages on Wednesday night. What a great start to the trip.

Newark Northgate
More like new work! And the team at Sadler’s Wells East are doing just that, having launched their new 550-seat venue and creative hub in Stratford, London. Their checklist for how to cover branding, audience and strategy implementation served as an inspiring template for how to establish creative presence through innovative design, clear signposting and community engagement. Street dance company Peer Grooving Dance Collective brought this work into the room as we learned how to create and move to rhythms made with our own bodies. Truly ‘dance from every angle’!

Doncaster
An old fort town whose prefix reflects the senior status of both university professors and mob bosses, the dons of the AMA are surely Clore Leadership, whose keynote on Amplifying with Impact was a bold and compassionate reminder of our ability to advocate not just for others, but also for ourselves. How can we support leaders and mitigate risk of burnout, low retention rates and an increasingly squeezed sector? Check out their World of Work report for more insights.

York
As we pass through one of the homes of Bettys, we remember some unforgettable keynotes at AMA conferences gone by — who could forget Dom Dwight’s iconic Yorkshire tea talk? This year, we were lucky enough to hear equally inspiring talks on compassion and kindness with Benjy Kusi, and pushing for change with Channel Four’s Amber Kirby. Both made a clear and refreshing case for the business benefits of running human-centred campaigns, listening to audiences and doing what you think is right — despite the haters. Super and human!

Northallerton
Northallerton is a market town, which is great, because we’re all about marketing. This year brought a fresh opportunity to connect with others and remember just how diverse our sector is, championing hundreds of disciplines, locations, and causes, all with one thing in common: a love for arts and audiences. We loved hearing from Kim Savage from Historic Royal Palaces about how they centred wellness in a recent campaign, giving us tangible insights into how they shifted their messaging, from initial idea to final execution.

Darlington
You might expect a theatre conference to be filled with luvvies and thesps, but the marketing space is all about innovation. London’s Natural History Museum and Dublin’s National Concert Hall both gave brilliant talks on using bespoke psychographic segmentation tools to better understand how their audiences’ needs fit around their programme. It makes sense to celebrate this in a town situated along the world’s first public railway to use steam engines. Choo choo!

Durham
Alongside new ways of thinking, the AMA is a brilliant opportunity to reconnect with the ancient wisdom of our marketing predecessors, ideal for one of the UK’s oldest university towns. The Roundhouse showed that understanding Gen Z audiences isn’t just about jumping on trends and churning out Tiktok content, but, as with all marketing campaigns, making an effort to really understand the values and drives of specific communities — especially ones that rate ethics and authenticity above all, and may be mistrusting of institutions.

Newcastle
One of our favourite talks was the discussion hosted about amplifying support for marginalised communities in times of threat. It was really insightful to get to break into smaller groups and talk about how organisations and agencies can make meaningful and impactful statements about causes in unstable times, without being tokenistic or insensitive. Like Newcastle, this was a stop filled with bridges to further explorations, and an undeniably good time.

Alnmouth
More like All in Mouth… Let’s talk about the food! Delicious lunches, teas and coffees were enjoyed over the two days, including some delicious neeps and tatties and even a cheeky Irn Bru. The highlight was absolutely the dinner at David Bann’s that we attended with a small group of our fellow delegates, as we discussed everything from arts marketing, to fried tofu and the best seasons of Arrested Development.

Edinburgh
All in all, this year’s conference was another incredible opportunity to reconnect with other marketers, explore new connections and ideas, and be inspired by others’ approaches and passion for what we do.

This is now our final stop. We’ve loved travelling with you, and can’t wait for next year!

For some light reading on your journey, you can catch on our Marketing Account Manager Beatrice's Brat girl summer blog post about last year's AMA conference in Brighton, which you can read here.

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