Phase I
Direction
- Audience Clarity Framework
04Event Strategy · 2025
EU Citizens' Gathering
EU Delegation to the UK
150+ EU citizens in the room with the EU Commissioner for Justice, the EP Vice-President and the EU Ambassador, in the fourth annual moment of post-Brexit dialogue on rights and representation.
The EU Citizens' Gathering is the EU Delegation's annual moment of direct dialogue with the millions of EU citizens still living in the UK after Brexit. The 2025 edition moved to Manchester, host to roughly 350,000 EU citizens and the largest community outside London. Our role was the three things that decide whether a gathering this sensitive lands as substantive or ceremonial: the brand it carries, the digital surface it lives on, and the operational planning that holds the day together.
The challenge
What the client arrived with.
EU citizens in the UK have technically had their post-Brexit status resolved, but the experience of being an EU citizen here is not. Questions of rights, representation, racism, and migration narrative remain live. The Gathering had to celebrate the contribution of the community AND open honest dialogue on what is still unresolved, in the same room, on the same day, without one register collapsing into the other.
The goal · One locked behavioural outcome
“Land the fourth annual EU Citizens' Gathering in Manchester as a credible institutional platform where EU citizens are heard by the policymakers who shape their rights.”
Every framework applied below served this single sentence. Direction, Meaning, Expression and Activation all gated on whether they advanced it.
The intelligence
What we learned about the terrain.
Manchester hosts roughly 350,000 EU citizens, the largest concentration outside London. The May 19th EU-UK summit had just reset the political context: the agenda had to engage with that reset, not float above it. Fourth-annual events sit at a fragile point in their life cycle: established enough to be expected, not established enough to be ceremonial. The unlock was a brand and digital surface confident enough to carry both registers (celebration and honest dialogue) without the visual identity itself picking a side.
The strategy
The architecture we built.
Direction locked on three publics with different jobs to do at the same event: EU citizens whose voices needed amplification, EU and UK officials whose presence needed to mean something, and civil society partners running the workshop infrastructure. Meaning framed the day as celebration and dialogue held in parallel, with the visual identity neutral enough to carry both. Expression unified in-room signage, social media and the dedicated digital hub. Activation paired the in-room event with a content hub at eu-citizens-gathering-2025.webflow.io that extended the conversation beyond the day and held the post-event record.
Methodology applied
The Campaign Delivery System, phase by phase.
Each phase below shows which frameworks ran on this engagement. Live phases carry the case’s colour; dormant phases sit muted.
Phase II
Meaning
- Narrative Framework
Phase III
Expression
- Visual Direction Framework
Phase IV
Activation
- Channel Strategy Framework
- Timeline and Sequencing Framework
The work
What shipped.
Event identity and visual system covering in-room and digital surfaces. A dedicated content hub for the gathering. Multi-stream event planning across an opening plenary, morning panel and parallel afternoon workshops moderated by civil society partners including European Movement UK, Young European Movement, Europia, Connects UK, Polish East European Centre, Black Europeans and Roma Support Group. Speaker programming integration for 30+ speakers including the EU Ambassador Pedro Serrano, EU Commissioner for Justice Michael McGrath, European Parliament Vice-President Katarina Barley, Manchester City Council Leader Bev Craig, and ambassadors and high commissioners from across Europe.
Outcomes
What happened afterwards.
150+ attendees in the room with 30+ speakers, including the EU Ambassador, the EU Commissioner for Justice, the EP Vice-President and the Leader of Manchester City Council, alongside ambassadors and senior representatives from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Malta. The fourth annual edition delivered a substantive agenda across EU-UK relations, the EU Settlement Scheme, rights and representation, and reshaping migration narratives. A comprehensive event report and video highlights published; the content hub remains live as the public record.
150+Attendees in the room
30+Speakers and panellists
350,000+EU citizen community in Manchester
4thAnnual edition delivered
Frameworks applied
The InStone toolkit used on this engagement.
Each framework is a piece of the Campaign Delivery System. See the Strategy page for what each one does.
- Audience Clarity Framework
- Narrative Framework
- Visual Direction Framework
- Channel Strategy Framework
- Timeline and Sequencing Framework
Deliverables
What the client received.
- 01Event identity and visual system
- 02Dedicated content hub at eu-citizens-gathering-2025.webflow.io
- 03Multi-stream event planning across plenary, panel and workshops
- 04Speaker programming and outreach support for 30+ speakers
- 05Social media content system
- 06Post-event report and video highlights publishing
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