Hello and welcome to Creative Places, our new quarterly newsletter bringing you all the latest placed based news, inspiration, tips and guidance for arts, culture, museums and heritage.
In my role as Head of Creative Places at The Audience Agency, I have a remit to support the development of evidence based, creative initiatives that benefit local communities, businesses, and visitors - through the touchpoints of People, Places and Culture.
Since officially launching our Creative Places offer in January, I am delighted to be working in Staffordshire, London, Telford and Wrekin, Manchester, Birmingham, Cheshire West and Chester to support ambitious projects and programmes to better understand their offers and create new opportunities.
None of these places are the same, all have their hero moments, and all have recognised areas to grow. However, at the heart of all the projects in development is the people.
My takeaway for this first quarter is Place is not just geography; it directly affects the way we feel. Culture is not just a performance; it reflects who we are. Together, culture and place provide the foundation on which our lives, our communities, and our future are built.
With our associate Strategic Place Advisor, Sarie Mairs-Slee, I examine how place-based collaboration can support innovative, creative-led regeneration of our towns and cities in a recent article for Arts Professional:
News from Creative Places across the country
Place Forum
Creative Industries: Skills and Sector Development
On 18 January this year the Creative Industries Council (CIC), in partnership with The Audience Agency, held its first open online forum to discuss place-based creative skills development. The event brought together representatives of industry, local and national government and over 200 participants.
Our aim in hosting these online events is to bring together industry, with national and local policymakers and partners, to make connections and to share insights, learnings and experiences. We want to help people designing policy and programmes, to better understand the specific needs of creative businesses and vice versa. We are conscious that many of the skills polices discussed are specific to England, but we hope the approaches and insights will be useful for colleagues across the UK.
Book now for the next Place Forum Event - Supporting Creative Business Growth
6 June 9.30 am - 11 am
Speakers include:
- Francesca Hegyi OBE, Chief Executive at Edinburgh International Festival
- Josh Siepel: Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, University of Sussex
- Sam Burton: Creative East
- Carol Bell OBE: Creative UK
- Charlie Kemp, Head of Creative Place, Tees Valley Combined Authority
Additional speakers to be announced. Alongside these speakers and presentations, there will be a Q&A and an opportunity to put your questions to the panel.
Evidence about the Sector
TEA (Talking Evidence and Audiences) Breaks offer a regular introduction to The Audience Agency's latest research, projects and sector knowledge - our April session focused on Creative Places. Watch the recording below.
Creative Places - Changing hours
We’ve been seeing a range of changing audience behaviours and attitudes since the pandemic, including shifting attitudes to event timings.
Creative Places - activities
We asked about a wider range of cultural activities to get a fuller picture of the sorts of things people do outside our usual arts, cultural and heritage scope.
 | We are now working in partnership on each wave of the Cultural Participation Monitor to give it a special focus or resonance, if your organisation is interested in a robust source of information on a particular topic, get in touch. |
If you're looking for bespoke place-based services, our team brings experience of community consultation, mapping, feasibility studies, strategy development, programme and action planning, placemaking programme delivery, project evaluation and legacy frameworks.
