DifFest to return for extended celebration of UK business innovation
Differentis has announced the second edition of its annual innovation festival. Taking place in Sheffield, from the end of July, the 2026 DifFest aims to bring together leaders, innovators, and changemakers to discuss and collaborate on the future of their businesses.
With the majority of business and AI transformations failing to deliver their intended impacts, securing the right support for organisational change can make or break a company’s plans. With change management consulting taking on new levels of importance amid the rush for technologically-driven business transformations, Differentis launched its DifFest series in 2025.
The firm, which specialises in intelligent transformation and strategic advice, initially branded the event DiffExpo25. But a year on, the firm is rolling out a second edition, under the name DifFest, reflecting an extended format.
Dave King, managing director of Differentis, commented, “DiffExpo25 showed us what’s possible when you bring the right people into the right room and give them space for honest conversation. DifFest 26 builds on that – but with more time, more depth, and a format designed to create the kind of connection and momentum that a single day simply can’t deliver.”
Taking place across three days in Sheffield, DifFest 26 will is positioned as a curated summer festival experience, rather than a typical business conference – offering the leaders who are actively shaping what comes next the opportunity to share in “bold thinking, honest conversation, and real connection”.
The speaker line-up is in development and includes figures already recognised from DiffExpo25, among them Dr Ashwin Mehta of Mehtadology, Jayne Manley of Sunnyhill Consultants, Katie Driver of Thinking Alliance, and Jenny Rae of Imperial College London.
Hosted at Discovery by Scrannery in the Steel City, proceedings will get underway from 29 June to 1 July, and will be free to attend for one, two or all three days. Over those sessions, DifFest 2026 is structured around three content pathways: Change & People; Design & Process; and AI & Innovation. The programme will blend keynote sessions, facilitated workshops, and open discussion with informal networking, outdoor spaces, and evening social moments.
The choice of festival format is deliberate. Differentis has designed DifFest 26 to move between energy and depth, challenge and ease, structured content and open conversation; an “inside/outside experience” that reflects both the Sheffield setting and Differentis’ broader belief that the best thinking rarely happens in a meeting room.
King added, “We wanted to create something that felt genuinely worth being at — not just professionally, but as an experience. DifFest is for the people who know that transformation is as much about the conversations you have as the methodologies you apply.”
