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The Katapult team, alongside partners Derby City Council, Marketing Derby, Phi Advisory and Derby LIVE, have scooped another award for the Derby Market Place project.
The team took home the ‘Excellence in Collaboration’ Award at the East Midlands Chamber Business Awards 2021. Speaking on the award win, Katapult’s Co-Founder & CEO Dawn Foote, said:
“It was great to be able to bring some of the project team together to attend the awards night to recognise the hard work and achievements during an extraordinary year. All of the team at Katapult are delighted that ‘Derby Market Place’ won the Excellence in Collaboration award, it goes to show what can be achieved when the public sector and private sector truly collaborate. The award goes to all involved who pulled together in a super speedy time to make it happen, supporting the hospitality and cultural sector when they needed it most.”
Derby Market Place project
In 2020, when we were invited to join a Covid recovery task force to explore ways to support the city centre’s hospitality industry by creating an outdoor seating area – and instill some much needed consumer confidence.
Katapult used their expertise to devise a solution which was able to be designed, built and operated within 4 weeks – we created the ‘Al-Fresco Dining’ experience in ‘Derby Market Place’. We brought together a range of key delivery partners and managed the overall budget and installation, working alongside Derby City Council and Derby LIVE (who operated the experience) to ensure everything went smoothly and was Covid compliant. This provided a vibrant, safe space for visitors to enjoy and gave local restaurants the additional capacity to support their viability during a challenging period. This project became Derby Market Place.
The results
Derby Market Place was an instant hit with over 6,000 guests enjoying the experience in just two months. Weekends sold out and overall 75% of the capacity was pre-booked. 26,000 guests in total visited in 2020. There was also a huge uptake of restaurants being involved with the project, as well as local makers and performers when it transformed into a Christmas market for the winter season, with QUAD providing the winter bar. These were key metrics in supporting local industries. The project also provided work to local creative and cultural business.
Nationally, the project has also been heralded by economists and the media. In September 2020, Centre for Cities, scored Derby 93% in their Recovery Index. A regional high in the Midlands. Derby Market Place was earmarked as a key project that helped Derby’s economy recover from the first wave of the pandemic.
In January 2021, PwC’s Good Growth for Cities Report praised Derby’s economic response, placing them 10th out of 42 cities for predicted GVA growth rate. Derby also had one of the lowest rates of workers on the Job Retention scheme and take-up rate of Universal Credit in 2020.
