The core festival programme for the International Festival for Business 2016 (IFB2016) in Liverpool is now complete with more than 80 major events confirmed.
Organisers expect that more than 30,000 delegates will attend the three-week event in June.
Confirmed events include the World Broadband Alliance's Wi-Fi Global Congress 2016, TedX and ACCELERATE.
Meanwhile, IFB2016's Meet Your Future Deal programme is predicted to be the world's biggest 'meet-the-buyer' event of the year, with companies taking part in 6,000 face-to-face meetings with potential new customers, suppliers, innovation and technology partners and investors.
There will also be 1,000 appointments with experts as part of the Meet Your Specialist Advisor programme.
Specialists from a host of organisations will take delegates through every step of the export or business growth journey, providing advice that will help companies make the most of IFB2016's opportunities. Specialist advice ranges from market research to tax, the tender process to logistics, and banking to legal.
Activity at IFB2016 will be clustered around three themes: manufacturing, creative and digital, and energy and environment.
The festival is supported by the government, main partners HSBC and BT, media partners Bloomberg and The Times, and festival supporters ARUP, DLA Piper, DONG Energy, Heathrow, PwC, Siemens and Virgin Trains.
Festival director Ian McCarthy said: "Our aim is to ensure the festival provides both a thoroughly practical experience for businesses, through events and digital matching and inspiration and exposure to new ideas through the Great British Showcase and engaging speaker programmes.
"The main festival programme is now complete but we will be revealing further details in due course about a host of international business personalities who will be taking part in a range of presentations as part of the Blue Skies speaker programme.
"The quality of the events and calibre of delegates attending means the festival will offer unrivalled opportunities for connecting with potential new customers and collaborators for UK businesses.
"The Meet Your Future Deal programme alone will see some 6,000 face-to-face meetings organised by our team on behalf of businesses looking to buy and sell goods and services."
Former South African president FW de Klerk, Lord Jim O'Neill and Liv Garfield, the Liverpool-born chief executive of Severn Trent Water who is one of only six female chief executives of FTSE 100 companies, have already been confirmed for the Blue Skies speaker programme.