Creative Cardiff is one

Creative Cardiff is marking its first year of connecting and celebrating the creative community throughout the city.

The membership network connects people working in any creative organisation, business or job across Cardiff and the city region and by encouraging people to work together, aspires to make Cardiff a capital of creativity.

Over the last 12 months, hundreds of creatives have joined the network and worked with Creative Cardiff to produce a programme of #52Things – features which enthuse, inspire, inform and engage. Resulting events and activities have enabled members to connect, discover new ideas, build their audience and promote their work as well as find new opportunities.

Working with founding members Wales Millennium Centre, BBC Cymru Wales and Cardiff Council and with the support of the Creative Economy team at Cardiff University, Creative Cardiff aims to amplify the creative economy community and encourage research and innovation.

Chair of Digital Economy at Cardiff University, Professor Ian Hargreaves said: “In its first year, Creative Cardiff has validated all four of our initial goals.

“We set out to increase quality and momentum between creative economy people in the Cardiff city region. The proof of that is in our growth in membership and on social media, but also in countless personal stories of individuals and organisations who tell us how they have found their way round Cardiff's creative economy by chancing upon Creative Cardiff, online or in some other way.

“We've also continued to build out our research network, collaborating with partners like Sŵn Festival.

“In our third objective, we set out to explore the case for investment in a creative hub in Cardiff and what we've found is that whilst we have been asking for feedback and conducting pilots, a small wave of hubs has simply emerged. Now we are concentrating on helping them to connect.

“Our fourth objective is to find a way of helping Cardiff to articulate a compelling vision for its creative ambition. Any one of the tens of thousands of people who gathered for the City of the Unexpected Roald Dahl Festival will have sensed the scale of ambition and energy that's out there. We hope to have new ideas to announce shortly about further steps towards this objective.”

Strategic Director of Wales Millennium Centre, David Pearce said: “Wales Millennium Centre is delighted to be a founding partner of Creative Cardiff and congratulates the team on its first successful year.

“Being part of Creative Cardiff fits with our ambition to inspire our nation and to impress the world. By working with the rich vast tapestry of the City’s creative economy, the Centre is able to collaborate to achieve its vision.  This is particularly evident by its recent collaboration with National Theatre Wales and with 6,000 amazing participants to stage the recent Dahl celebration in Cardiff - the City of the Unexpected - where the Centre, Cardiff and Wales truly demonstrated its creative credentials.

“The Centre is also delighted to have been the first host of a Creative Cardiff hub welcoming over 30 practitioners.  The Centre wishes Creative Cardiff continued success and looks forward to further developing our close relationship for the benefit of the creative economy.”

Become a member of Creative Cardiff.