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Shape your Union... one idea at a time!

  • Wednesday 9th July 2025
    (Optional networking Tuesday 8th July)
  • 09:30 - 16:00
  • Southampton University Students' Union
Buy your ticket

SUSummit 2025

SUSU are excited to announce their second Marketing, Communications, Digital, Events & Business Development conference – SUSummit! A day of idea sharing and learning of best practice, latest trends and innovation on the ever evolving landscape of Student Unions!

Our hope is to create a conference that is affordable, with content relevant to your sector and plenty of interactive sessions that add value to your role. We learnt a lot from last year, have listened to your feedback and hope this year is bigger and better!

There will also be opportunities for networking, giving you the chance to meet like minded individuals and make connections with other SU’s! 

Hear From Last Year's Attendees

“The opportunity to talk through challenges with other SU marketers, being relatively new to the sector the challenges feel unique and complex, but it was really reassuring to hear others have similar experiences. It was also great to put faces to the names of other SU's we often scope out for inspiration. I really enjoyed the Personas Talk, it was really interesting and definitely something we want to look at.”
“It was great to connect with other marketing professionals in the student union sector”
“I enjoyed learning about the different experiences of other SUs, and also found it quite reassuring that we were all experiencing the same issues, that we were able to share and discuss. The Student Personas session piqued my interest and it's something I'm excited to discuss with my own team. I think that would help us tremendously in marketing!”
“It was so great to meet like minded people who were open to asking and answering questions and challenging each other to better our roles! The SUSU were very informed and really welcoming. It was a pleasure to attend”
“It was great to have an event specifically targeted at Students' Unions and getting to know more about other unions' challenges. Also really enjoyed the talk about data and student personas.”

What will be covered?

  • Marketing
  • Comms
  • Digital
  • Events
  • Business Development

From student led events to social media, data discussions and managing your portfolio, you will have access to a wide variety of sessions including presentations, round tables and group discussions. Please find below the agenda, we will hopefully be adding more sessions – watch this space.

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Tuesday 8th July (Optional)

Times Agenda
16:00 - 18:00 Evening activties

Wednesday 9th July

Times Session Agenda
09:30 - 10:15 Welcome Registration + Refreshments
10:15 - 10:30 Introduction
10:30 - 11:30 Keynotes (2 sessions per time slot to choose from) Freshers Fair
Communicating effectively with International Students
11:45 - 12:45 Insight/PowerBi for Events & Campaigns
Reaching Gen Z
12:45 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:30 Roundtables (Choose from one of these 4 sessions to attend) Marketing
Digital
Events
Business Development
14:45 - 15:45 Guest Speakers (Choose from one of these 4 sessions to attend) Marketing, Warwick - Student Content Creators
Digital, Andy Morwood - Talking all things AI
Events, Foxpro Events - Keeping Up With Changing Trends
Business Development, TBC - 3rd Party Companies
15:45 - 16:00 Closing Closing Remarks
16:00 - 16:15 Optional building tours

FAQs

Tickets are £45 and give you access to the conference, car parking, lunch, refreshments and evening entertainment. Please click here to purchase your tickets.

Hotels near the student union (within a 10-minute drive):

  1. Travelodge Southampton Central, parking available for £5 per 24 hours
  2. Elizabeth House Hotel, £105 incl. VAT for the night for single occupancy, parking, and breakfast, email – mail@elizabethhousehotel.com and quote ‘University of Southampton Student Union Event’ to redeem the discounted rate. Emailed
  3. DoubleTree by Hilton, parking available for £5 per 24 hours 

Hotels within 5-minute walking distance of Southampton Central Train Station (15 min taxi to the student union):

  1. Ibis Budget Southampton Centre, parking available for £10 per 24 hours 
  2. Ibis Southampton Centre, parking available for £10 per 24 hours 
  3. Novotel Southampton, parking available for £10 per 24 hours 

Pre-arranged parking is available on request. Please contact SUComms@soton.ac.uk with your registration number, make/model and vehicle colour.

Southampton Central train station is just a 10 minute drive away from Highfield Campus. There is a taxi rank outside of the station, or you can use the Unilink buses to bring you straight to campus. 

Agenda will be released soon, but you can expect talks covering Marketing, Digital, Events and Business Development.

There will be networking opportunities throughout the day, with a number of breaks and spaces for you to meet your peers. 

We are also excited to be hosting a Quiz in our cafe/bar The Bridge exclusively for attendees of SUSummitt. This will take place on the evening of Tuesday 8th July. Please indicate attendance on the registration form.  

This conference is only open to current members of student union staff. 

Once you have booked your ticket you will be asked to submit your topics for the Roundtable sessions for consideration.

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