Over the next three months we’ll be working with the NCA, which campaigns and avocates for the arts sector across the UK, to help the organisation chart a new strategic course. At a time of almost unparalleled change in the sector, this is a crucial point in the NCA’s history, as it looks to identify how it can provide the most effective support to those working as artists or in arts organisations.

To help determine the organisation’s next moves, our work will include surveys of existing and former NCA members, plus widespread consultation with a good range of people working in the sector, and in funding, policy-making and umbrella organisations.

We’ll also be surveying the 21000+ people who’ve pledged support for the I Value The Arts campaign.

This feedback will inform our work to develop a set of strategic recommendations for the organisation from 2012 onwards.

More details here as the surveys go live…

I was there to present key findings and recommendations from the hub’s Arts Council England- and British Council-commissioned research into how the two organisations can more effectively collaborate to support musicians and music organisations to work abroad. The resulting report Supporting Musicians Abroad was published earlier this year, alongside mapping data we collected as part of our research. Meanwhile, here’s a copy of my WMF Supporting Musicians Abroad presentation

It’s great to see that the two organisations have acted on a good number of our recommendations. Sometimes, as a researcher you work really hard to come up with carefully thought-through, industry-tested recommendations, only for them to be consigned to the ‘what could have been’ pile. So, I’m pleased that Arts Council and British Council have made some good moves as a result of our work with them, including:

* At a strategic level, our recommendations have been specifically referenced by the Arts Council and British the Council as part of their new Memorandum of Understanding, which sets out how the two organisations should work together
* Members of the music teams in both organisations now meet regularly, and attend each other’s strategic planning sessions; each officer in these teams now has a direct ‘oppo’ in the other organisation
* Along with UK Trade & Investment, the two organisations have formed an international music framwork group, through which they can share plans, jointly develop projects, maximise efficiencies and minimise duplication
* Arts Council England has invested in The Great Escape and Womex 2010 and 2011, the latter in partnership with UK Trade & Investment
* It’s also given ‘go and see’ support to a group of producers to identify relevant new showcae opportunities for English electronica/experimental music

Returning to the WMF seminar, which was primarily focused on the TV, film and gaming sectors, the key themes from the WMF seminar were the importance of a level playing in terms of tax breaks (give them to UK players or take them away from others!), collaboration as a means of making more happen, the challenges of balancing creativity and entrepreneurialism – and the imperative to do so and the need for information to flow freely between people working in different contexts within the creative industries (not least between policy makers and those making content). There were also repeated calls for the government to apply pressure to the banks to increase the amount of money flowing to small creative businesses via the much maligned Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme.

To conclude the final panel, Mike Weatherley asked panellists to tell him what they thought government should prioritise in terms of its support for the creative industries. Here, my insight is that flow of money (via improved lending and investment from banks and central government initiatives as well as public funding) to small independent music businesses – from across the whole sector, not just the indie/rock and pop sector – is absolutely key, alongside fit-for-purpose business-related training and mentoring support. Small scale promoters, creative producers, independent record labels – these are the folks who for decades have created the conditions for artists to innovate (before being ‘spotted’ by larger set ups, who can take them further), and whose continued ability to do so is absolutely crucial to the ongoing contribution made to the UK’s GDP by the creative industries

Let’s hope that Mike will take all those points back to his discussions with Ed Vaizey, Jeremy Hunt and Vince Cable.

Our research provided information about MusicLeader’s members, their needs, ambitions and the challanges they believed they face and will face in the future. It also consulted them around how they thought that MusicLeader could most usefully provide support in the future, testing this with key figures in the music education sector, and providing recommendations for future programme development, communications and operations.

Informed by this research, MusicLeader has published a new on- and off-line brochure, describing the information, advice and guidance, training and networking opportunities and online resources it provides, and giving useful information about how all those involved in young people’s music making can access them. It looks great (!), and is packed with really useful information. If you’re involved in this kind of work, or know someone who is, then do check it out and get in touch with the MusicLeader team in your region; they’re a great bunch, they really know their stuff and can connect you to lots more free advice, training and guidance.

EFDSS aims to ?nourish artistic innovation and excellence and develop the reach of English folk and new acoustic music in the UK and its profile internationally?, and we?ll be looking in particular at how it can support artists to build and connect with new live audiences. Get in touch if you?d like to find out more, or tell us what you think.

In the meantime, check out Folk Rising, a three-part concert series sampling the freshest, undiscovered and at times radical UK folk music, produced by EFDSS and the most excellent The Magpie’s Nest. The future sound of folk…today.

In arriving at our recommendations, we mapped the support currently available to those musicians and other music professionals in England working, or wishing to work, internationally, and identified where the needs of such individuals and organisations are currently unmet.

the hub?s findings have been welcomed by both organisations, and they have already informed the new Memorandum of Understanding between the Arts Council and British Council and the Arts Council?s consultation document Achieving great art for everyone. On a practical level, the two commissioning organisations have also begun work in response to some of our recommendations, for example the suggestion of a more ?joined up? approach to strategic planning, showcasing in the UK and overseas, online intelligence and clearer communication of our international priorities. Meanwhile, recommendations relating to touring, internal professional development, evaluation and lobbying and advocacy will inform future developments.

You can find a copy of the executive summary, our mapping and gapping analysis of the current infrastructure in England and contextual information about the commissioning partners, along with their joint response to our research, here.

The organisation Sound Connections have launched an online survey that looks at the way young people ?do music? in London. The survey is live online until the morning of Monday, March 17th.

If you are a young person or work with young people, you could help out. You can access the survey by clicking here or visiting the Sound Connections site. All who take part in the survey will have the chance to enter into a prize draw with 3 Amazon or iTunes vouchers worth £50.

The idea of the survey is to gather research that will help shape future youth music projects, benefiting young people all over London. So remember kids, you?ve got to be in it to win it!

As part of this project we invited music entrepreneurs to take part in a region-wide survey and to help us work up our recommendations for how the two agencies could best support music businesses in the region. We had a great response, and delivered our full report to the Arts Council and Yorkshire Forward at the end of the summer.

In light of the research, ACE and Yorkshire Forward are currently considering how best they can support the region’s buzzing music scene. As part of this, Yorkshire Forward is currently working with the new Business Link provider, which will broker relationships between creative businesses and specialist business support providers from April 2008. The two agencies also decided to publish our main findings at this point, so that they can share them with music businesses, entrepreneurs and other business support agencies across the region.

In response, we have put together a summary report, Yorkshire Music: a report into business growth needs and ambitions of the region’s music industry, which can be viewed at http://www.thehubuk.com/files/Yorkshire-Music-Report.pdf.

For any additional information regarding this project, please send an email to: julia@thehubuk.com

Working with five festivals from around the UK, we have populated getmytickets.co.uk with out-of-date or fake ticket information to give potential users a realistic idea of what the site will look like and how it will operate. The feedback we gain from this exercise will enable us to make any necessary tweaks or changes.

Alongside the five festivals, we have also been working in partnership with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA) to bring you this online ticketing service for independent festivals across the UK.

Interested in getting involved?
The site has been set up to allow fake tickets to be purchased. If you would like to help us out by buying some (don?t worry, no money actually changes hands!), then please get in contact us via intern@thehubuk.com and we will supply you with further details on how to do this.

If you?d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com or getmytickets.co.uk@gmail.com

To help us to build a box office service and training programme that will be of real use to festival organisers, we are asking them to tell us about how they currently sell tickets. If you are a festival organiser, please do fill it in. It should only take you five minutes or so, and we promise won?t share with anyone else any of the information you give us. You can download a copy of it here, and email your completed questionnaire to us.

If you are involved in organizing more than one festival then it would be great if you could complete a questionnaire for each one.

If you?d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com