Are you a small creative business, freelancer, would you like to set up your own company or perhaps you have an arts and crafts side hustle you would like to take further?

This event is aimed at anyone who would like to make money from their creative talents. There will be workshops, talks and opportunities to connect and chat with likeminded creatives throughout the day, a chance for you to ask the experts about any business topics you need help with and an exhibition celebrating local creatives.

You are welcome to attend as many sessions as you wish. Please indicate on your booking form which sessions you would like to attend. Please note that as spaces are limited for some workshops and talks, places will be allocated on a first come first serviced basis.

The event programme will include:

10:00am -12:00pm Savvy Creatives - Running your creative venture as a business with confidence

Workshop by Crave Arts

You will learn how:

• to shape your idea and bring it alive with confidence,
• to develop your creative business through accessing funding (public and philanthropic) or through purely selling what you do,
• to take practical steps in creating and running your business.

Come prepared to share your ideas in a supportive environment.

This session will be delivered by Steve and Debbie of Crave Arts, a Worcestershire arts and heritage company.

12:00pm - 12:45 Networking Lunch for Creatives

12:45pm - 1:45pm How to reach your goals in a creative business

As creatives we often aspire to a goal or vision for our business but getting there seems elusive. In this session David Wilson from Research, Design and Marketing business Glued will give you a way of breaking down a goal into manageable steps. This interactive session will explore a process of working backwards from your vision. By working out what resources, people, and connections you would need to have in place at the moment just before you’ve achieved your goal you can start to break the process down. By working backwards each time you end up back at the present day, thus giving the steps to potentially reach that vision and goal you’ve always wanted.

David asks you to come to the session with a vision, perhaps something which currently seems unobtainable and a little ‘pie in the sky’.

2:00pm - 2:45pm - Ask the Artists (panel talk)

3:00pm - 3:45pm - Challenges and Opportunities for Creative Start Ups

Talk by Andy Jackson from i-Creation

4:00pm - 5:00pm - Ask the Experts

This is your chance to have a chat and ask questions to a team of experts specialising in finance and fundraising, accountancy, intellectual property and start-up support.

5:15pm - 6:00pm - Why social media is good for creative businesses - Top tips to boost your online presence.

Talk by Esther Partridge-Warner from Online Media Works

6:00pm - 6:30pm - Networking for Creatives

Speaker Biographies

Debbie Birch and Steve Wilson of Crave Arts, a Worcestershire arts and heritage company.

David Wilson of Glued a Research, Design and Marketing business

Helen Keegan, Strategy Consultant, Event producer, Facilitator, Writer, Connector.

Andy Jackson runs a creative agency with a global client list and has experience of providing freelance services and employing great freelances. Andy is entrepreneur in residence at The Arches project in Worcester.

John Holmes, Managing Director, Advantage Creative. John is an expert on finance and fundraising for creative start-up companies and arts & cultural organisations.

Esther Partridge-Warner of Online Media Works has a mission to help business owners who didn’t grow up with smartphones become expert at managing social media.