Our Impact

Focused on Impact

Having a positive impact on our local community and beyond is one of our top priorities.

We want to deliver an annual event that is entertaining, educational and well-organised so that our attendees have a fabulous experience.

But, above that, we want to leave a lasting impression in the minds and hearts of our audience, both at the live event, and beyond as our videos go live on the global TEDx YouTube channel.

Showcasing new ideas is all about sparking conversation, sharing thought-leadership and learning, and potentially influencing the way our audiences think and feel about the world to incite positive behavioural change.

Ideas Change Everything

The strapline for TEDx changed in 2024 to Ideas Change Everything to reflect the focus on having an impact on the world, as opposed to it being just about spreading an idea that might get lost in the noise of multiple communication streams we’ve all become accustomed to.

It is against that backdrop that we have created this page:

to spotlight the initiatives we’re pursuing to support and improve our community – near and far,
to share stories of where our talks have taken both speakers and audiences in the past, and
to nurture the wonderful sense of community that TEDxWarrington invests in.

TEDxWarrington 2025 has youth on it's side

2025 sees TEDxWarrington invest heavily in the younger section of our community. Here are 3 of our initiatives so far:

Partnership with Warrington Youth Zone, who hosted our event and showcased their wonderful facilities and services for young people.
Selecting a venue partner each year takes us time. We like to move around, showcase the town’s locations, and have a connection to the spirit of our location. WYZ was the perfect fit for a year when our focus would fall on young people, so integrating their services and projects into our promotional journey, as well as at the live event, is key.

Creation of an extra place for a Young Applicant (16-24 years) with an idea to share.
TEDxWarrington introduced a Young Applicant category for its 2025 event as part of its investment in the voices of tomorrow. Applicants had a separate application timetable and support package, with a later closing date of 31 July and the pitch night in September. The successful candidates were given coaching and support to get them to the TEDx stage so all they need is a great idea – the rest we helped with.

Development of a TEDxWarrington Bursary Programme to offer subsidised tickets for the under-25s.
Our Bursary programme offered discounted attendee tickets to anyone under 25 years of age when tickets opened later this year. Plus, it also subsidised 2 tickets and 1 member of staff for every Warrington school and college and university with students aged 16-25.

Please spread the word

We hope you’ll agree that these ideas (and we have more in planning), are exciting development that take us into new sections of the community.

If you have young people in your life, college or workplace, please help us to spread the word about our plans so we can maximise their reach and impact.

Keeping it Local

During every step of event planning and delivery, we focus heavily on supporting the local community, town of Warrington and county of Cheshire.

In our curation plan, our outreach work invests in building relationships with town-based and regional organisations to share our messages and invite suggestions and partnerships and speakers

For inbound applications, we give extra consideration to local voices with great ideas to share.

Within the organising team, all members work voluntarily and are based or trading in the Warrrington and Cheshire area to ensure. For those outside of the area, they are usually former speakers who are keen to come back to support a project they enjoyed and benefited from.

And for suppliers – from venue to audio visual, photography to videography, merchandising to catering – we source local quotes so that we support businesses on the ground near us and a supply chain that is on our doorstep.

A non-profit ethos

TED and TEDx is of course a non-profit organisation in its own right, and by default the TEDxWarrington association is too.

Team members volunteer their time, speakers are not paid nor pay us for their place.

Volunteering by team members and partners offering services results in hundreds of pro bono hours – it is the ultimate example of CSR without any kind of CPD accreditation or company paid time. Yes, those involved may increase their local profile but their give-back to this project and often personal sacrifice far exceeds the value of this, so it has to come form a place of dedication to the ethos of TED/TEDx spreading new ideas and positive behavioural change, and a desire to be involved in leaving a legacy.

The event is funded by the generosity of local businesses who sponsor the event and from members of the public who buy tickets to attend.

Though we do not affiliate ourselves with or fundraise for specific charities, we do of course embrace opportunities to work alongside them. If speaker applicants reach our stage and represent a charity, we are delighted that their organisations get indirect benefit. If pieces of performance and entertainment are delivered by third sector groups, we are similarly happy to embrace what they can showcase at the live event.

Watch this space for what the 2025 live event brought.

Event Impact

The most memorable thing about the last event was the inclusion of performances and alternative talk content, particularly the talk in British Sign Language (BSL) and the ballet performance.

Following my attendance at TEDNext in Atlanta in October 2024, I was inspired to mix up the programme and experiment with new formats to introduce music, dance and demonstrations, with the intention of offering more variety and something for everyone in the live audience.

We specifically modified our curation process and application process to attract more variety in the format of content, length of performance, and the age and experience of speakers.

New formats we successfully introduced:
Contemporary dance
Poetry
British Sign Language
Science experiment
Alongside several regular style spoken word talks.

Length and quantity of talks:

We also decided to showcase more performances but for shorter lengths of time, so instead of 10-12 talks of 8-16 minutes, we ran with 18 speakers with talk lengths ranging from 2 to 10 minutes maximum.

Age diversity:

We ran a young person’s applicant route (16-26’s) to attract age diversity and with the goal of finding a new talent in our area. We found so many new voices that we ended up with 6 out of 18 being under the age of 27 so the profile of performers ranged from 16 to 60 and from novice speakers through to polished speakers.

Event auditorium:

To accommodate our new format, we set up a second performance stage, each with its own MC, and we modified the layout to accommodate the performances and audience interaction. We used the second stage for the non-TEDx speaker content and invited performances from local charity choirs in our interval. I really wanted to add bean bags for floor seating like I sat on in the 2nd arena in Atlanta but couldn’t get them sponsored. Next time maybe.

The variety in the event and fact that a 4-hour show passed so quickly with so much happening is the thing that has been commented on the most. Whilst everything was linked under the theme ‘Identity and Purpose’, we incorporated so much variety and will definitely be pursuing this format again.

Help us create a lasting impact in Warrington

Community is at the heart of our work.

We want to keep nurturing that concept.

And bring together the multiple communities we’re creating and investing in – event attendees, partners and sponsors, organising team members, annual speaker cohorts, the Warrington and Cheshire region and even beyond as our ideas inspire others or reach further.

Have you got an idea of how TEDx could create more impact in the Warrington community?

We’d love to hear from you so please engage with us via Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram or send us an email at organisingteam@tedxwarrington.co.uk