A COUNTY business festival has been hailed as a great success.

Last week saw the sixth annual Worcestershire Festival of Business at the Chateau Impney in Droitwich.

The festival, organised by Worcestershire Enterprise Ltd, saw businesses meet to network and share expertise, promoting the county in the process.

Councillor Peter Tomlinson, chairman of Worcestershire County Council said: "Worcestershire business is in good hands.

"I had an excellent morning and what impressed me so much was the enormous enthusiasm and optimism of all the exhibitors."

Darren Wilkins of CITYSIGNS hailed the event a great success and said: "We have exhibited at every Worcestershire Festival of Business so far and 2019 was certainty the best year yet.

"It was great to be among likeminded businesses and delegates to promote our business.

"We used the event to promote new products and we will certainly be back again next year."

The day started with a networking breakfast from 7.30am until 9am, before the main exhibitions.

Another exhibitor, Simon Hodgetts of SB Print said; “We’ve come away from the exhibition with a great batch of new enquiries to work on and visitors were telling us that they would much prefer to buy local and support like-minded businesses – that’s a win-win for everyone."

The Worcestershire Festival of Business is organised by Worcestershire Enterprise Ltd, the social enterprise business behind the popular #WorcestershireHour hashtag on Twitter.

MD Stuart Allen commented that; “A survey sent out to hundreds of the exhibition visitors has already had a huge response and the best statistic so far is that 100 per cent of them are planning to attend the event again in 2020.”

The event charity for 2019 was Worcester based Leukaemia Care who received a cheque for £500.

Launched in May 2013, #WorcestershireHour has grown an active Twitter following of over 20,600 local accounts.

The #WorcestershireHour twice weekly event brings together local businesses, charities and the communities of Worcestershire.

It hosts live Twitter hours which are 8-9pm on Monday Evenings and 12-1pm on Wednesday afternoons.

For more about the business festival, go to worcestershirehour.co.uk/festival-business-2019/