New Yorkshire Music

‘You’ve got to try and throw this party just as far as you can…Open your heads like a satellite.’ Saturday Night, Kaiser Chiefs

The new Regional Economic Strategy for Yorkshire and Humber 2006 – 2015 gives significant prominence to creative industries. In response to this, Yorkshire Forward and Arts Council England Yorkshire commissioned the hub in 2006 to investigate the possibility for structured support for the music industry in the region.

Our response to the brief, and our approach to developing our recommendations, built upon our relevant experience and knowledge of the issues at stake, particularly the growth needs of music SMEs and the rapid changes taking place in the music industry nationally and internationally.

In order to best understand the needs of music SMEs in Yorkshire, we consulted a wide range of organisations and individuals, including labels, venues and festivals, independent producers and promoters, venues, participatory music organisations. We also consulted existing support providers, in order to identify the extent of their support for music entrepreneurs. To do this we posted a survey online and carried out a series of one to one interviews with a range of key players.

New Yorkshire Music, the ‘bottom up’ model we developed in response to what we were told and what we found, has been tested and reviewed favourably by music businesses in the region. 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.

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