the blog

  Balance is a new series of online talks and drop in sessions we’ve developed for artists and creative freelancers or entrepreneurs who want to learn how to take better care of their minds and their businesses.   Our first Balance session this month explored exactly why we – as artists, creative freelancers and entrepreneurs – […]Read More

Earlier this week we ran the first in our new series of Balance talks, all about why – as artists and creative entrepreneurs – we need to balance our minds if we want to balance our books. We were joined live by close to a hundred people from across the creative sector  – writers, film […]Read More

With people across the creative sector struggling to make sense of how we’ll live and make a living while Covid-19 continues to make its impact felt on our daily lives,  the need for peer support has arguably never been greater. That’s why I’m really excited to be launching a new virtual action learning programme for […]Read More

With people across the creative sector struggling to make sense of how we’ll live and make a living while Covid-19 continues to make its impact felt on our daily lives,  the need for peer support has arguably never been greater. That’s why I’m really excited to be launching a new virtual action learning programme for […]Read More

So as you know, we’re launching a new, entirely free, action learning programme for folk working in Colchester’s creative sector – everyone from artists and freelancers, to those running their own creative businesses or working in larger cultural organisations. Applications close on 2 June.    Take a look at our intro video Earlier this week, […]Read More

So, exactly how can we how we can begin to tackle inequality in the music industry? This question was the focus of a day of discussion, reflection and debate at the wonderful Constellations in Liverpool last Saturday. A small but select gathering of musicians, promoters, journalists and researchers came together for the second of our […]Read More

The music industry can look an awful lot like a man’s world, even in 2018. Fewer than 1 in 5 songwriters in the UK are female, just 1 in 6 labels are majority-owned by women, and fewer than a third of those working in the industry are female. Get to the upper echelons, and only […]Read More

Imagine the scene – 25 or so of Europe’s most curious and forward thinking composers, musicians and creative technologists, gathered together at NESTA HQ for a ‘nothing’s impossible’ day of plotting and conspiring, eating and drinking, thinking and doing. All in the name of exploring the next frontiers of live performance, and how digital technology […]Read More

Earlier this week I joined 300 other delegates at the Music Venue Trust’s second Venues Day, all of us enjoying the slightly weird experience of drinking tea in the Ministry of Sound bar at 10am on a Tuesday morning. And all of us clutching hot off the press copies of the GLA’s Rescue Plan for […]Read More

Earlier in the year and ahead of the 2015 General Election we ran a social media campaign with the Music Venues Trust #VoteforMusic, in which we asked people to tell us what they thought the incoming government should do to secure the future of the independent music sector.  Unsurprisingly many of the issues and concerns […]Read More