The Mayor’s Night-Time Economy Commission – City Curator Blog

You might have seen the news that West Midlands Mayor, Richard Parker, has established a Night-Time Economy Commission, to help him protect and revitalise the West Midlands night-time economy. The Commission brings together leading voices from the region’s breweries, pubs, restaurants, clubs, cultural and music venues, alongside national industry chiefs and I’m really thrilled to have been selected to be part of the group.

The Night-Time Economy (NTE) is so critical to Birmingham and the region – around a third of the West Midlands workforce is employed in the night-time sector, including 100,000 people in hospitality alone. 

I sit on the Commission both as City Curator and as the Founder & Director of Living for The Weekend, which is what keeps me busy when I’m not working as City Curator two days a week. I hope I can bring to the table my expertise from over a decade of delivering Birmingham Cocktail Weekend, in addition to my wider experience through Birmingham Restaurant Festival and, of course, as City Curator too.

It’s also incredibly timely as I am currently fundraising (in my role as City Curator) to commission a Food & Drink Tourism Strategy for Birmingham. The West Midlands Combined Authority are part of that project too, and I have no doubt there will be a lot of alignment and shared goals.

Whilst I’m on that, a huge thank you to the 10+ organisations who have already joined the journey and pledged funds and support for The Birmingham Food & Drink Tourism Strategy. I’ll share more on this in due course – we are nearly at our fundraising target now and I’d be thrilled to hear from any other organisations who are interested in finding out more and helping us to get across the finish line and begin work.

But for now, back to the Commission. We met for the first time this month and spent time identifying the biggest challenges and opportunities for the NTE. Over the coming 6 months we’ll explore the issues and the solutions and we’ll report back to the Mayor with our recommendations in March 2026.

It’s a real privilege to sit alongside such an inspiring group of people, including:

• Crissie Rushton – University of Wolverhampton at The Halls, Wolverhampton
• Henry Poultney – Grace & James, Birmingham
• Dalvinder Dhillon – Dhillon’s Brewery, Coventry
• John Barrett – CVOne Nightclubs, Coventry
• Jack Brabant – Digbeth Dining Club
• Toni Grehan – She Creates / Variations, Birmingham
• Lyle Bignon – Night-Time Industries Association
• Jim Cathcart – UK Hospitality
• Roxy Bentley – Nationwide Caterers Association
• Sophie Asquith & Jay Taylor – Music Venue Trust

The group really does have a wealth of experience from across the NTE — and a shared commitment to ensuring the West Midlands thrives, Cllr Chris Burden, Chair of the Commission, summed up our goal:

‘to develop a positive vision for a region that is a thriving and safe place to work and socialise after dark.’

Wherever possible I’ll be opening up discussions with my network to help me shape my thoughts on questions and challenges posed through the group. Particularly the newly formed Birmingham Hospitality Collective and my colleagues across the five Birmingham city-centre BIDS.

I’m excited to get started!