Q&A with Lucy Renshaw
Continuing the Q&A series with key figures from The Howard de Walden Estate
Following Lucy Renshaw’s promotion to Head of Events and Marketing, we caught up with her on the latest activities including the Marylebone Summer Festival Goes Digital and the revamp of the Marylebone Village branding.
Tell us about your role at The Howard de Walden Estate: what does it involve?
My role involves managing the marketing and events which promote Marylebone Village, the Harley Street Medical Area and our retail, office, residential, medical and educational properties. Collaboration is key to what I do: working with our teams, our stakeholders and the many businesses across our 92-acre West End estate. It’s a fascinating job.
This is a great part of London and our job is to communicate that to people both here and further afield. The pandemic has naturally disrupted this year’s events programme which normally features the Marylebone Food Festival, the Summer Festival, and Marylebone High Street Christmas Lights which together attract tens of thousands of visitors, but we have been developing new initiatives to keep the village in people’s eye-line and support the businesses who normally benefit from the events.
The Marylebone Summer Festival went digital for the first time this year, can you tell us more about the event and share any particular highlights?
Despite the fact that the physical event was unable to go ahead this year, we created a digital version which had tremendous engagement. There were a huge number of great performances, competitions and demonstrations across the week. Two of my personal favourites were the free XtendBarre Class with Catie Miller and the Sunday extravaganza of live music performances hosted and curated by Tony Moore.
Do you foresee Digital as having a larger role to play in events going forward?
Definitely. I think that previously digital offerings were seen as a ‘bolt-on’ for major events, whereas going forward, events will be undertaken as a whole campaign with the physical event and digital offerings going hand-in-hand. The use of digital can be a great way of spreading awareness, increasing audience engagement and contextualising an event before it goes ahead through social media, while also providing increased opportunities for more people to get involved with a particular event even if they can’t physically be there.
The Marketing team recently revamped the Marylebone Village brand, can you tell us more about this?
The Village is constantly evolving and the brand has to move accordingly. We worked with our creative agency, Sister, to create a new look and feel before rolling it out across everything from websites to re-usable water bottles. The project was a great team effort led by my colleague Annette Shiel who did a fabulous job, and I think the designs really capture the spirit of Marylebone Village.
What are your favourite spots in Marylebone Village that you’re most looking forward to visiting as we begin to move to a more normal way of life?
It’s great to be back working in the office as I love being in the area. Prior to my role at Howard de Walden, I worked in Marylebone for several years on George Street, so I am very well acquainted with the superb offering of shops, bars and restaurants.
I’ve been known to enjoy the odd glass of wine outside 108 Brasserie on Marylebone Lane while real treats will include lunch at Orrery, at the top of Marylebone High Street or a seafood platter at 28-50, at the bottom of Marylebone Lane. My first post-lockdown purchase when I got back to work was a headband from Anthropologie – it was great to be actually shopping in person again and you realise what a very different pleasure it is to browsing a website!
