THE theme of this year’s Brighton Summit is “Look Up”.

The event, now in its sixth year, takes place on Friday, October 12, at The Clarendon Centre in New England street and is designed to celebrate the city’s spirit, resilience and dynamism as a business centre.

After the turbulence of recent years, business owners and entrepreneurs could be forgiven for drawing in their horns and looking inwards.

But businesses in and around Brighton are different.

There’s a quality that infuses us, says Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce, a spirit of optimism, open-mindedness, and opportunity.

A spirit that means we “zig while others zag”, from SMEs to big business, and this is expressed in this year’s summit theme.

Look Up means finding opportunities where others see problems and engaging with the world – next door, the next community, over the sea – not closing ourselves off.

And it means being here now, living in the moment, and not worrying unduly about yesterday or tomorrow.

As Oscar Wilde wrote: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

The summit is always a high-energy conference, bringing together the city’s distinctive business community and is the highlight of the chamber’s year, regularly attracting some 300 enthusiastic delegates.

Super Earlybird tickets for the summit sold out within four hours.

It’s for anyone in and around Brighton who wants to evolve and expand their business.

It’s relevant for all kinds of enterprise from SMEs to start-ups; from multinationals to social enterprises and charities, whether you’re a business owner, a CEO, or a manager; an entrepreneur or an employee.

Brighton Summit brings together the city’s diverse, expert business community.

Comments from delegates after last year included: “I think the event is one of the best I have ever been to due to the complete lack of ‘corporate-ness’. Couple that with the extremely high calibre of attendees who really care about their area of expertise. I am following up over 35 leads with gusto.” – Daisy Cresswell, co-founder of Liberty842 .

“A slicker, more content laden event could not be found anywhere – indeed it gets better year by year.” – Emma Cleary, Ten2Two Sussex

“The summit was amazing, I had so many brilliant conversations and it was a really good way to get my brand more well known.” Grace Lawless, managing director, Veriteam.

To book tickets go to http://brightonsummit.com/tickets/

Earlybird tickets are on sale until June.

The headline sponsor for the sixth year is Cardens Accountants.