From zero to hero in time for 2025
🧢 From the worst place in Britain for a shortbreak, to one of the Best Places to Go in 2025. As we come to the end of 2024, Condé Nast Traveller is already starting to identify some of the best places to go in the year ahead. Included amongst them is Derbyshire, where Derby gets a strong namecheck for the new-look Market Hall which the magazine says, “Will emerge from a sparkling £35m restoration in spring,” adding, “Completed in 1866 by the same engineer who worked on the Royal Albert Hall's dome, Derby Market Hall will feature a food court, artisan stalls and entertainment”. Further debunking a Which? report of last year which called it the worst shortbreak destination in the UK, the message is clearly out there: Derby is trending as a place to visit in 2025.
🧢 This week’s ‘Top Pick’ @WeightmanPR: Becketwell Live
What’s not to like about behind-the-scenes, hard-hat tours of venues which are just a few months away from being opened to the public? It’s such a privilege to get to see, and hear, how things are taking shape. And the main feedback from Becketwell Live - Derby’s new £45.8 million entertainment and conference venue in the heart of the city centre - is that everything is well on schedule for the Spring opening. What’s even better is that its innovative design, state-of-the-art facilities, and sheer attention to detail will make this one of the finest theatres in Britain. The keys will be handed over to the venue management company ASM Global on 20 January…and the curtain will rise in April.
🧢 Icons and Heroes recognition for Stoke’s unsung hero
A new display, highlighting the outstanding work undertaken by one of Stoke-on-Trent’s unsung heroes, has gone on show at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. The soft opening of the display, dedicated to one of the city’s least heralded sons, is now scheduled to be followed by an official launch on the 23 January 2025 - the birthday of plastic surgeon John Grocott who helped change the lives of so many people for the better before, during and after the Second World War. And all of this also coincides with the news that the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) is to include Fenton-born Grocott in their Icons and Heroes Gallery in its new virtual museum.
🧢 Derby makes its own luck…
And finally (for now), who knew that Lara Croft was “born” in Derby? It might be a little-known fact at present, but once Phoebe Waller Bridge’s long-awaited new TV series hits the screens, the city will also be making the most of its reputation as a “Pioneering City”. Watch this space as we all hopefully get ready to watch Sophie Turner - best known for appearing in HBO fantasy drama Game of Thrones - portray one of the city’s best-loved daughters.