Edinburgh's 'creative community' – among them writers, advertising creatives, animators, graphic designers and TV directors – are being invited to shape the agenda of a representative body set up to promote their businesses.
The call has been made by Creative Edinburgh, which is being resurrected following a number of years having been mothballed, due to funding from the local branch of Scottish Enterprise coming to an end.
With new funding from the City of Edinburgh Council, Creative Edinburgh is inviting interested parties to an event on Wednesday, to help identify its strategic objectives.
Says John Denholm – former chair of the Leith Agency advertising agency and now managing director of recruitment firm Denholm Associates: “The creative industries are possibly more important to Edinburgh now than they ever were, in this current economic climate. And it's great that the council has decided to provide funding to allow Creative Edinburgh to begin its work again.”
Last time around, Creative Edinburgh hosted a number of speaker events, plus a dedicated website comprising news and comment. It is estimated there are 3000 'creative' companies in the Edinburgh 'city region', including the Lothians and Fife – involving 22,300 people.
Denholm was the chair of Creative Edinburgh before it was mothballed. His view is that Edinburgh can be as vibrant a creative hub as anywhere else, since it's as easy for a landscape architect, say, to fly from Edinburgh to Frankfurt to meet a prospective client as it is from, for instance, London. Indeed, world-renowned landscape architects, Edinburgh-based GROSS.MAX., work mostly abroad. He said: “The purpose of the event is to gauge the level of interest and the type of support people might wish to receive from Creative Edinburgh.”
He added: “The event on Wednesday will be an opportunity to say, 'This was the purpose of Creative Edinburgh in the past. Do you think there is a role for it now and what should its role be?'”
The event on Wednesday is part of the inaugural Edinburgh International Marketing Festival. It comprises a brunch, between 10.15 and 13.00 at the Assembly at Princes Street Gardens. Places are free, but it is a ticketed event. To attend, telephone 0131 623 3030.
