I’d still struggle to explain exactly what it is, so here’s some blurb from the council’s press release:

The Creative City initiative will play a significant role by:

• Creating a fund to build on existing public sector funding of the arts through loans, grants, match-funding and investments. The allocation of funds will be based on the potential for job creation and economic growth.
• Outlining the vision for a new ‘museum quarter’, including a new museum of photography and the development of a new contemporary art gallery.
• Exploring ways to unlock private sector and philanthropic support for culture, linking cultural development to wider economic growth.

So this was really the launch of an idea. In the way that Manchester has Media City and London has Tech City, Birmingham (if it wants it) could claim the title of Creative City.

Thing is, the designations of those other two seem to have been built on much stronger foundations (a strong BBC presence and an already burgeoning tech scene, respectively). All we seem to have at the moment is ideas, visions (like this one for a Museum Quarter), pledges and plans with comparatively little substance. Maybe’s it’s just early days, but if the intention of this event was to make people excited about the possibilities on offer then I don’t think it worked.

Maybe the more substantial conversations are all taking place behind closed doors this afternoon – but then I got the sense from others that therein lies the problem. Chatting to people afterwards actually left me kinda depressed by it all.

Personally, I’m not sure what to make of it and I’m pretty busy, so here’s the audio from the speeches that were made. Please have a listen (they’re all quite short) and I’d love to hear what you make of this in the comments below.

In typical Peter O’Hanra-Hanrahan style, I managed to miss the bit where James Yarker from Stan’s Cafe thanked Cllr Timothy Huxtable for name-checking his theatre company but asked him how he squared that with the council cutting their funding by 100%. The response is in the final audio clip above (although it does make for uncomfortable listening).

On the subject

It would be hugely remiss of me not to point out this rather angry post by Pete Ashton, many of the sentiments of which I would endorse.

A couple more links

• This from James at Stan’s Cafe should be read
• As should this from Stef Lewandowski, should be read too, with some interesting comments
• Philip Parkin is upbeat but says he “struggled to find the substance”
• BOP Consulting point out this launch is all “particularly interesting as it is one of the first LEPs to announce its ambitions for the creative industries’
• Pete’s done a round-up of some of the discussion
• Pete also pointed to the discussion on the Re-Stirred forum

Andy Street, Chair of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) Board invites you to the launch of Creative City by Ed Vaizey MP Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries. Creative City is an important new initiative bringing together the public and private sector to harness culture and creativity to drive economic recovery.

The event will include the launch of Catalyst, the new £100 million culture sector wide private giving investment programme, sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund.

I’ve not come across this Creative City idea before and can’t find anything about it online, just stuff about the old Creative City Awards. On the other hand there’s a fair bit of info about the Catalyst fund here. So anyway, it’s the week after next and a light lunch is promised. Bonza. I’ll report back.

Fwiw, the invite had a lot of logos on it.