Bristol — Week of 19 Oct 2026

Half-day martech exhibition and seminar programme putting vendors in front of regional marketers.

Hi all, This is a free coworking session intended to alleviate the isolation of remote work/WFH! We are a group of freelancers, remote workers and business owners who get together for a chat over coffee, work on our respective projects for a few hours, and then enjoy some more social time at lunch (we will head to St. Nick's food market at 13:00).

Bristol Business Show aboard Brunel's SS Great Britain — regional exhibitors, seminars and networking across a general business audience.

Join 100+ finance and accounting professionals at financeSHOWCASE Bristo! Free entry, expert seminars leading suppliers... CPD certificates.

Join us at itSHOWCASE for an ERP Discovery Day! Pre-qualified meetings with ERP suppliers who understand your business needs.

The community for professionals who are changing the way England thinks, talks, and acts around wellbeing.

A two-hour practical workshop on pitch delivery rather than pitch content: presence and poise, using your voice, managing nerves, and preparing mentally and physically before you stand up. Led by Amy Armstrong, an award-winning leadership and resilience coach and senior clinical hypnotherapist, for SETsquared Bristol. It is built around the six Ps of compelling pitching, with time to practise, reflect and take feedback in the room. 14:00 to 16:00 on Tuesday 20 October. It is designed to complement SETsquared's separate Elevator Pitch workshop, which covers structure and content. Free, in person at the Sloane Robinson Building, Cattlemarket Road, BS1 6AZ. The registration page states no membership requirement or eligibility gate. Why go: delivery is the part of pitching most founders skip and the part an audience reacts to first. Go if you have something real coming up, a demo day, an investor meeting or a first sales conversation, and you know nerves get in your way.

The community for professionals who are changing the way the UK thinks, talks, and acts around wellbeing.

The Nuclear Civil Structures Working Group meeting #4 with a presentation on 'Eurocode 8: Impacts and opportunities for Nuclear Design'

Fortnightly working session where people bring whatever they are building and spend an evening on it, alone or paired with someone else in the room. Beginners pick up coding challenges; experienced developers use it as protected time for side projects. Bring a laptop and something to work on. Run by CodeHub Bristol, the volunteer-led community behind local workshops, mentoring and study groups, with James Rennison among the organisers. DeskLodge sponsors the space. The shape of the evening is fixed: social on the ground floor from six, introductions at 6:30, heads-down work from 6:45 to 8:15, then closing remarks by 8:30. Free, at DeskLodge House on Redcliffe Way. Arrive by 6:30, because reception closes after hours and latecomers may not get in. Discussion happens in the #hacknight channel on CodeHub's Discord. Why go: It is one of the few Bristol rooms where you actually leave having written something, and the mix of beginners and senior developers makes it a cheap way to get unstuck.

A hosted small-group founders' dinner facilitated by Samantha Hamlin — conversation over a shared meal rather than presentations.

Roland DG intermediate digital print course focused on UV printing, at Roland's Bristol training centre.

A full day of coworking for Bristol founders at TCN Temple Campus, run by for the FOUNDERS on the third Wednesday of every month. Bring whatever you are working on and spend the day alongside other entrepreneurs, with conversation fitting around the tasks that actually need finishing. Open to founders at any stage.

The Business Growth Show brings exhibitors, seminars and speed networking to Shaftesbury Park for Bristol business owners.

Dive into the world of ransomware and learn how to outsmart hackers in this hands-on, interactive workshop.

Looking for a new Career? Looking for your next Hire? The UK Careers Fair returns to Bristol on Wednesday 21st October.

Pervasive Media Studio's weekly open day for producers and people working in a producing role. Grab a hot desk in the Studio, meet other producers, and get to know the space and its resident community. Runs 10:00 to 17:00 at the Watershed on the harbourside.

Digital Skills Course Digital Skills Course welcomes Beginners to Improvers, topics include Online, Ai, Emailing, Social Media and Online Safety. 8 Weeks Break for Half Term

YouMore's lunchtime session at BLOCK Bristol on using video to build real relationships rather than chase views.

Early-stage founders pitch for five minutes each and then take five minutes of questions and feedback from a panel. The audience votes for the Canopy People's Choice Award, and the rest of the evening is conversation between founders, investors, students and mentors. Presented by Canopy Community in partnership with SETsquared Bristol, hosted by Stewart Noakes, Sophie Connolly, Rachel and Matt Ville. This October edition is the first event held at the University of Bristol's new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, next to Temple Meads. It runs from 4pm to 8pm. The standard ticket is free. The investor, Canopy member and SETsquared member tiers each need approval from the hosts, and the investor tier gets priority access to the startups. The exact room address is shared once you register. Why go: Worth it if you want to see what is actually being built in Bristol rather than hear about it, and the five-minutes-plus-feedback format means founders get real criticism instead of applause.

with Carl Sargunar (Speaker, umBristol)

Two technical talks for people who build on Umbraco CMS. Carl Sargunar on observability, using telemetry to catch problems before release and to give AI coding agents enough signal to test and diagnose their own work. Busra Sengul compares three approaches to search in Umbraco, putting Examine, Algolia and a custom Azure AI Search integration side by side with live demos. Hosted by the team at Manifesto at Runway East Bristol Bridge on Victoria Street, with Gibe Digital and Rock Solid Knowledge sponsoring. Doors at six, food and drink from 6:15, welcome and news at 6:30, talks from 6:45, finishing at nine. Organised by Nurhak K. and Cat T. Free, and food and drink are provided. Why go: Narrow by design, since this is a CMS-specific room, but the observability talk travels well beyond Umbraco, and it is a reliable way to meet the agencies doing .NET and content platform work in Bristol.

Three talks — what I learned building with LLMs, being more productive with AI, and where this all goes — then pizza, drinks and networking.

On video games, politics and the battle for global influence

Established in 1999 - Come for a one-off visit and network with our membership at Aqua Welsh Back, Bristol BS1 4RR

A monthly drop-in conversation about innovation and technology, built around the business problems people in the room are actually stuck on rather than a talk from the front. The October edition runs under the title The AI Reality Check: what businesses have learned from trying AI, and what has not worked. Dolo Miah of New Icon guides the discussion. Doors open at 8am, the conversation runs 8:30 to 9:30, and there is optional networking until 10am. Breakfast and coffee are provided. No presentation, no sales pitch, and nothing to prepare. It is capped at eight places, at Runway East, 1 Victoria Street, Redcliffe, BS1 6AA. Paid parking nearby. Why go: eight people and an hour is small enough to put a real problem on the table and get useful pushback, which a breakfast format rarely allows. Best for founders and technical leads mid-way through an AI project and unsure whether it is working.

Online Seller UK's hands-on Google Ads course — building a search campaign, bidding and the current best-practice techniques. £300.

Hi all, Hi all, This is a free coworking session intended to alleviate the isolation of remote work/WFH! We are a group of freelancers, remote workers and business owners who get together for a chat over coffee, work on our respective projects for a few hours, and then enjoy some more social time at lunch. No obligation to show up at the start of the appointed session time, either - feel free to join whenever, even if just for lunch :) Beacon Loaf is a spacious, airy cafe with good WiFi that makes great coffee, pastries and lunch options.

Bristol City Council's free full-day workshop on turning a business idea into a plan — the legal, financial and practical essentials of starting out. At The Gatehouse, Hartcliffe.

A two-hour hands-on workshop on the three artefacts most early-stage businesses get asked for and few have ready: a 60-second pitch, a one-page summary of what you do and why it matters, and a sales pitch deck. It works through the core elements of each with practical exercises and case studies. Run by the Bristol NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator team, 10:00 to 12:00, with experience from founders and a Q&A with their experts; no individual speakers are named on the listing. It sits in the Accelerator's sales strand, and a one-hour follow-up plus a Growth Lab on pitching confidence are offered alongside it. Free, at the Accelerator hub, 2 Avon Street, BS2 0PT. You are asked to download the NatWest Accelerator app and join the Sales Accelerator group for your area beforehand. Why go: useful if you can explain your product to engineers but lose the room in front of buyers, and you would rather leave with drafted material than notes.

WILDHeart's short session at 77 Stokes Croft on sharing your work and expertise publicly without adopting a persona to do it. £11.55.

Online Seller UK's Google Analytics 4 course — configuration, reporting and getting usable answers out of GA4. £300.

with Sir Iain Gray (Speaker, Royal Aeronautical Society)

The Royal Aeronautical Society's Bristol Branch marks the unveiling of an AIAA Historic Aerospace Sites plaque for the Filton site and airfield, recognised for its role in aircraft design and manufacture since 1910. Refreshments and the Heritage Museum from 17:30, plaque unveiling at 18:00, then a talk by Sir Iain Gray on Filton's history in the John James Theatre from 18:30. Concorde opens at 19:10. Free.

Technical Bristol event on facade design, fire protection, detailing and Gateway support, with food, drinks and networking

with Chris Willis (Principal Engagement Manager (host), Codurance) · Jamie Loudon (Principal Engineer, Babcock) · Justin Paul (Marketing Director, Open Gateway, GSMA)

A panel on how AI is changing software delivery in practice: where it genuinely speeds teams up, where it quietly adds risk, and how to adopt it without giving up quality, security, scalability or engineering discipline. Listed themes are craftsmanship, engineering guardrails, real adoption examples, and AI's different effect on experienced versus early-career engineers. Chris Willis, Principal Engagement Manager at Codurance, hosts the panel. He is joined by Jamie Loudon, Principal Engineer at Babcock and creator of Campaigns Never Die, and Justin Paul, Marketing Director for Open Gateway at GSMA. Codurance runs the session for Software Crafters Bristol, 18:00 to 20:00 at Lost & Found on Queens Road in Clifton, with pizza and drinks on arrival including vegetarian and vegan options. Free Meetup RSVP with no attendance cap, and guests are welcome if they RSVP in advance. Why go: Software Crafters is a practitioner room, so the AI conversation tends to stay concrete rather than drifting into hype. Go if you write or lead software and want to hear what guardrails other teams have actually put in.

A weekly informal co-working session for people who work remotely and would rather not do it alone. People bring laptops and work on their own projects side by side, with coffee at the start, a loose break for lunch around noon, and the option to carry on into the afternoon. Hosted by Patrick Woodcock for the Bristol Co-Workers group, 9:30 to 12:30 at Watershed. Writers, software engineers, designers, students and freelancers all turn up, and arriving at 9:30 is suggested rather than required. Go up the stairs from the Watershed cinema entrance and right into the cafe bar; the group sits at the big table on the raised platform, marked by a stuffed crab toy. Free, though you are asked to buy food or drink to support the venue. Good WiFi and plug sockets. It runs every Friday until 19 December. Why go: the lowest-commitment way into Bristol's freelance and developer scene. Good if you are new to the city or newly self-employed.

Free morning networking for women in business, or thinking about starting one, at the Almondsbury Interchange Hotel.

For women in business ready to be seen by the right people & chosen by the right clients. Real conversations to move business forward.

Pervasive Media Studio's weekly open day. Grab a hot desk, stay for the Lunchtime Talk, and get to know the Studio and its resident community of artists, technologists and creative companies. Runs 10:00 to 17:00 at the Watershed.

WILDHeart at 77 Stokes Croft on selling when you don't enjoy selling — pricing conversations, promotion and where the discomfort actually comes from. £11.55.

An hour on how interactive and spatial storytelling actually gets made with a community rather than about one. Judith Aston presents her ongoing collaborative work in Avonmouth, using the Stornaway.io platform to open up dialogue about the area's possible and preferred futures, and borrowing polyphony from music as a way of holding several independent voices at once. She also connects the project to the Three Horizons framework, pioneered by Pervasive Media Studio co-founder Bill Sharpe. Aston is Associate Professor in Film and Digital Arts at UWE Bristol, co-founder of the i-Docs interactive documentary research network, and a practising anthropologist. 13:00 to 14:00, with Q&A. Free and open to all, with donations invited. In person at the Pervasive Media Studio, Watershed, 1 Canon's Road, BS1 5TX, or on YouTube Live. The room is streamed and recorded. Why go: a rare look at the craft and ethics of participatory digital work, for designers and researchers building things people are meant to speak through.