West Suffolk AI Festival
Over a thousand delegates, a room designed to look like the inside of a spaceship, and a surprisingly grounded set of conversations about what AI is actually doing for regional businesses.
- 27–28 May 2026
- 09:00 – 16:30
- XR Lab, West Suffolk College, Bury St Edmunds
This one has been and gone. See what's coming up next.
Hosted by Eastern Education Group and Orbital Global, the festival filled West Suffolk College's XR Lab, a £2 million facility designed by Cambridge architects WindsorPatania, who took their cues from Men in Black and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Across the two days it ran keynotes, live demonstrations, hands-on workshops, fireside conversations and investor pitches, with over a thousand delegates through the door.
What we did there
Day two, on the stand. Most of the useful conversations were with teams who have tried a few AI tools and are working out how any of it connects to the systems they already run on.
- Reconnected with familiar faces from across the Suffolk and Norfolk tech community
- Met new contacts working on the same operational problems from different directions
- Talked through where AI is earning its place day to day, and where it is still a solution looking for a problem
Who was there from our team
Getting there
XR Lab, West Suffolk College
University Professional Development Centre, Western Way, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Parking on site at the University Professional Development Centre, ten minutes from Bury St Edmunds station.
Directions