Well, I wasn’t at The Big Debate on Monday, so I can’t tell you what the answer was. Here’s a list of ideas that came out of the event, although if that’s anything to go by the answer was “no, we need to sort ourselves out before telling the rest of the country what to do”.

That may not be an accurate summary though.

If you want to find out for yourselves, the live stream and blog are both archived on the Birmingham Post website. I hear Charles Leadbetter was good.

Personally, I was impressed by the series of blog posts that preceded the main event:

• The Post’s own Marc Reeves wrote an excellent piece criticising the “erratic approach to creating ‘quarters’ across the city” and addressing access to finance saying “Put simply, many in the creative sector need to grow up, put on a suit, and get to know how finance works”. Well worth a read
• Fullrange’s Lee Kemp was persuasive on regional work projects being reserved for regional (in his view a very bad idea)
• Screen WM’s Jason Hall talked about how to prove the impact of creative stuff. Answer – join a network. If there isn’t one for you then start one.

Meanwhile, since the event, Paul Bradshaw has countered those who complained of too much talk and too little action. Dave Harte has done likewise while attempting to lay a few other myths to rest. Rebecca Sykes and Andrew Brightwell have put their thoughts down too.

If anyone was there it’d be good to get your thoughts on the event.

Not my idea but that of Anthony Rose from the BBC. His point, made at The Big Debate yesterday, is that too much choice is stifling. Applying it to festivals (of which there are many happening/coming up in Birmingham) he said that he loves the idea of them but, faced with an unending list of things to do, he ends up doing nothing.

He suggests festivals break their listings down, perhaps :

• Just the highlights
• Just the free events
• Just the weekend events

And so on, you get the idea.

He said if you picked out four highlights for him he’d probably go along. Give him a list of 50 to pick from and he’ll just sit at home.

I think I’d probably agree. Anyone else? Anyone think it’s a daft idea? I’d be especially interested to hear from anyone involved in festival organisation.