Economic Profile

Creative Industries

The city is recognised as the second largest media centre in the country, employing over 17,000 people and supporting in excess of 1,000 businesses.

Birmingham is home to a thriving community, which embraces all aspects of the creative industries from new media, software design, designers, publishers, performers, music, photography, artists, PR, and marketing firms. As well as being home to major broadcasters such as BBC, Carlton and newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror there are a wide range of theatres, opera, ballet, and art galleries.

The creative industries are seen as one of the key sectors to further contribute to the area's continued growth and expansion, and to enrich and embrace the wide diversity of talent that we have to offer. There are major developments planned and underway throughout Eastside, the Jewellery Quarter, and the Custard Factory to create a focus for further growth and support to the industries over the coming years.

Other initiatives include:

Business Support for the Creative Industries Programme

Launched by Birmingham City Council, this initative is designed to assist both new and existing small to medium sized enterprises within Birmingham and Solihull.  The programme is managed by the Council, and delivered via a number of key partners. The package of support runs until June 2008.

The programme aims to provide an holistic package of support, which encompasses the following four key elements:

1. Creative Space (Incubation)

Newsflash

Creative Space Grants: 

For Business Start Ups: No further new business start up creative space grant applications will be considered, as this budget is now fully committed.

For existing businesses: As from the end of April 2008, no further applications will be considered, to allow time to clear the influx of applications we currently hold. However, we will review the situation over the forthcoming weeks, and if there are sufficient funds remaining after this period, we will then consider further enquiries/applications from June 2008.  Look out on this  website for updated newsflash messages in June.

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Creative Region:

No feasibility or creative space regional enquiries/applications will be considered, as the programme has now fully committed its funds.

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Up to £5,000 of grant support is available to:

• Set up new business premises
• Expand existing premises

Eligible costs include:

• Rent and rates (for the first 12 months)
• Physical relocation to new premises
• Telephone/fax connection
• ISDN lines/cabling
• Broadband connection
• Business signage
• New business cards and letter headed paper
• Installation (heating and electrical)
• Professional fees

(Please note that equipment and refurbishment costs are ineligible)

2. Feasibility

Newsflash:

BSCI Feasibility Grants:  

For Business Start Ups: No further new business start up feasibility grant applications will be considered, as this budget is now fully committed.

For existing businesses: For the time being, no further applications will be considered, to allow time to clear the influx of applications we currently hold. However, we will review the situation over the forthcoming weeks, and if there are sufficient funds remaining after this period, we will then consider further enquiries/applications from June 2008.  Look out on this  website for updated newsflash messages in June.

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Up to £2,500 is available to help identify new market opportunities for products and services.

The funding can be used to:

• Assess the market for a new product or service
• Undertake specialist sector studies
• Production of demo CD and videos
• Design Portfolios

3. Business Development
Up to 5-20 days consultancy support to develop a business in, for example, the areas of:

• Business planning
• Sales and marketing plans
• Financial planning, etc

4. Business Programmes
Master classes and workshops covering sector specific subjects such as:

• Intellectual property rights
• Distribution
• Contracting
• Sales pitching

To view more detail on the assistance and initiative run by the Creative Development Team, please click here.

Case Studies

A number of creative companies have received grant assistance under the Business Support for Creative Industries programme to help relocate their premises to Birmingham. If you would like to learn more about these companies, please click here.

Contacts
If you are interested in the above BSCI programme, then you can contact the Creative Development Team by phone or e-mail on any of the following numbers:

For feasibility support call:

Manjit Bassra on 0121 303 4873
(Email: manjit.bassra@birmingham.gov.uk)

Hazel Evans on 0121 303 3063
(Email: hazel.evans@birmingham.gov.uk)

Sue Jones on 0121 303 4501
(Email: sue.a.jones@birmingham.gov.uk)

For Creative Space support call:

Karen Jenkins on 0121 303 3779
(Email: karen.jenkins@birmingham.gov.uk)

David Messenger on 0121 303 4198
(Email: david.messenger@birmingham.gov.uk)

For Business Development support call:

Lara Ratnaraja, Business Link West Midlands on 0845 113 1234
(Email: l.ratnaraja@businesslinkwm.co.uk)

If you wish to obtain Application Forms for either the Creative Space or Feasibility elements, then these are available electronically.  (When applying for either Creative Space or Feasibility support, please ensure that a Jobs Monitoring Form is completed and accompanies your application.)

Please click here for the Feasibility Study application form

Please click here for the Creative Space application form

Please click here for the Jobs Monitoring form

You can complete the forms, attach your application to an e-mail, and submit to any of the e-mail addresses listed above.  Alternatively, you can print off hard copies of the forms, and post to the address contained within the application form.

Design Space

A New Incubator Support Programme Designed For Start Up Creative Businesses

Creative Space is a new scheme aimed at retaining creative talent within Birmingham.  It is designed for creative individuals wanting to start up a business in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.

The scheme will provide shared incubation space and facilities for up to 30 creatives who are committed to starting up a design led business.

The incubator unit will provide the following:

• Free access to shared incubation space for up to 12 months to run the business from
• A fully serviced environment (ie workshop facilities/studio space/IT equipment/showcase and meeting area)
• In-house mentoring
• A package of sector specific business development support
• Clustering/networking opportunities

In return, it is asked that the individual:

• Commit to self employment
• Achieve an NVQ Level 3 Business Planning qualification

Registration can be made by completing an Incubator Scheme Enquiry Form attached below.

Birmingham City University, Media ContentLab

Since becoming operational at the beginning of 2003, a number of growing media companies in the West Midlands are benefiting from Birmingham City University's £2.70 million centre for new media production.

Based in the university's Department of Media and Communication, Media ContentLab provides first class equipment and expertise for growing media businesses in the region.

Custard Factory

Housed in and around the old Bird's custard factory, when complete it will be the largest single complex of creative activity in Europe.  It will provide 250,000 sq. ft of ‘affordable’ workspace for as many as 1,000 creative people from many different creative industries sub-sectors.

The award-winning first phase is already home to a dynamic bohemian community of 500 artists and small creative enterprises. The latest phase includes a hundred studio/offices, shops, galleries, and restaurants, plus the Green Man, a towering 40 ft sculpture made of earth, fire and water. On the way are a small luxury hotel, live/work apartments, a riverside walk, a new bridge, a perfumed garden for the blind, and a 40,000 sq ft international design and exhibition centre.

The creative industries have been at the forefront of urban regeneration in Birmingham since the 1980s and 1990s.  Their place in the city's transformation was quite accidental as they moved into undesirable industrial buildings to create low-cost workspace for an up and coming generation of businesses.

Since 1990, Digbeth's Custard Factory, a state-of-the-art conversion of Sir Alfred Bird's early 20th century custard factory with associated developments over its five-acre site, has housed numerous creative businesses.

It's now established as a buzzing creative 'cluster' of over 200 units housing businesses, ranging from multi-media through to commercial gallery space and art studios.  The Custard Factory's success assured SPACE Organisation, its developers, of the city's hunger for workspace specially tailored for creative businesses.

In 2002, SPACE Organisation opened the stunning Gibb Square development, featuring the high specification Greenhouse building and the landmark 40ft high Green Man sculpture.  Yet will there still be a place for the creative economy in Birmingham's increasingly expensive property market?

"The success of the Custard Factory and other developments underlines the demand for affordable workspace, " says Pat Jones, a Birmingham based project manager with an interest in developing workspace and the sort of infrastructure that supports the creative sector.  "This is one of the challenges that creative businesses in Birmingham face as the city re-generates."

Artspace

An innovative scheme linked to the £6 billion regeneration of Eastside, is being used by Birmingham City Council to directly target growth of the cultural sector.  Through the project, Artspace, creative industries, particularly artists and craftspeople, will benefit from planned new developments.  Artspace will make the best use of property scheduled for redevelopment in the Eastside plans by making it available on short term, low cost leases to individual artists or groups.

Birmingham City Council is no different from any other local authority in being obliged to charge market rental for its property, however, Artspace will make an exception to that requirement for eligible artists.  Birmingham City Council is clearly determined that there will be affordable workspace for creative businesses in the city's Eastside.

The city council's new Department of Creative Development underlines the political commitment to sustaining Birmingham's creative economy.  Launched in April 2003, this new department is designed as a further catalyst to the growth of a creative economy citywide.  Paul Cantrill, head of the new department, outlined some of its objectives.

"We'll incubate new businesses, encourage re-location and support existing businesses.  There are grants of up to £5k for start up and relocation.  There's money available for feasibility, where we match sector specific business consultants to businesses with a new creative idea.  We're also offering master classes and up to 20 days subsidised business support."

Cantrill is clearly excited by the possibilities of the new department and goes on to talk about the multi-agency approach that is at the heart of the new initiative.  "Key agencies such as the Learning and Skills Council, Business Link Birmingham and Solihull, Advantage West Midlands, Arts Council West Midlands, plus those representing creative sub-sectors like Screen West Midlands, have come together to deliver the sort of joined up thinking that will create infrastructure.

"Together we can realise some exciting aspirations.  We want to see the transformation of businesses that are operating out of somebody's living room into businesses that are employers and have workspace.  We envisage 500 sustained businesses who are investment ready coming out of our work."

That development agencies recognise the importance of the creative contribution to the regional economy is an important factor, believes Ian Danby of Arts Council West Midlands.  "The development agencies have grasped the concept that not all creative industries are the same.  Sub-sectors like screen or craft have different business needs and expectations."

"Export advice has to be specially tailored to a company who want to find a market for their hand made greetings cards.  Again, a web design company might well outsource aspects of their business but a jeweller or ceramacist is very much hands-on and will want to keep that connection with their craft."

"Patterns of business expansion clearly differ.  Basic business is applicable to everybody but sector information is, well, sector specific."

As Birmingham develops, what does the future hold for the creative industries?  Cantrill, someone, who is clear about the possibilities of Birmingham as a creative city, outlines his vision.

"Birmingham will be a city that creative people want to live and work in.  We want businesses to make money from their ideas and creativity.  We want to grow local employment.

"There's a real, but not insurmountable, challenge where we need to align the physical development of Birmingham with that of the creative sector and have a skills base to match.  Get these factors aligned and we're on to a winner.  Come back to me in two years and I think we could be getting there."

Appliance of Science

Birmingham-based innovator QinetiQ has developed a low cost digital camera to help clothes shoppers find their perfect fit.

If mass produced, the 3-D camera could cost as little as £30 and can be applied to a range of practical solutions including accurate body sizing for the retail sector.  When combined with body modelling and size extraction software, it will allow shoppers to find their perfect measurement.  If given information on what styles best suit an individual's body shape, it could also ensure they pick garments which best flatter their figure.

This technology was originally by QinetiQ for the MOD to improve range mapping and target identification capabilities whilst ensuring that the ranging technologies are difficult to detect by using low power or passive systems.  The hi-resolution data can also be used for applications including footwear sizing, security and access control, product surface and computer game mapping.

Interest has also already come from  a number of engineering and manufacturing sectors, including automotive, space and the leisure markets because the devices can operate in real-time, are ecxptionally compact and have low-power consumption.

John Bannister, QinetiQ's optical technologies business manager, says: "The size, weight, accuracy and low-cost of our device automatically lends itself to retail and a number of other applications and we're confident product designers will appreciate the potential and come up with others we haven't even considered."

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