A new showcase is being set up to draw out the best of the city’s creative industries.

The showcase, taking its Twitter handle, @CreativeCardiff, for its title, will promote the richness of creative talent in theCardiffcity-region and their contribution to wealth creation and prosperity.

The foundation stones for @CreativeCardiff are a number of events and festivals already established in the creative calendar, including the Cardiff Design Festival, Soundtrack, Sŵn, Made in Roath and Creative Minds.

By pulling together the @CreativeCardiff showcase, the collective potential of these and other events gives the Cardiff city-region the opportunity to demonstrate its creative strength.

The @CreativeCardiff showcase will be launched in London on 12th September at a Cardiff Ambassadors event in London, with a keynote speech from Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy at Cardiff University.

Prof. Hargreaves is the author of Digital Opportunities, the UK Government’s review of intellectual property rights and their effect on economic growth. He also published The Heart of Digital Wales, a review of creative industries for the Welsh Government.

In his launch speech, Prof Hargreaves will, for the first time, bring together his thinking about the prospects for the creative economy ofWales, in the context of rapidly changing digital technologies and the challenges this brings for the protection of copyright.

Cllr Rodney Berman, leader of Cardiff Council, said:

“By pulling together many elements of creative business, artistic and cultural activity already flourishing, @CreativeCardiff will give added strength to the city’s economic growth.

“Cardiff has all the building blocks to be a creative hub. The city’s academic institutions are very highly regarded, graduates are motivated to stay in the city and we are attracting high quality employers to take advantage.”

Richard Thomas, managing director of Cardiff & Co, the company set up to promote the city region, said:

“Our aim is to create a showcase which, over a period of years, can grow into something of national and international significance. Its success will rely on a team approach with a number of key partners adopting the @CreativeCardiff identity and using it alongside their own.

“By doing so, they will benefit from increased exposure, while the city-region’s creative community will benefit from its first-ever dedicated and concerted creative industries campaign.

“This is the first step. We are looking to build from modest beginnings, with support from the city-region’s creative businesses. Its success will depend on how quickly they see the benefit of the broader creative community.”

The context is the growth in Cardiff of a creative business community along the lines of that identified by US writer Richard Florida.

Florida identifies the creative class workers, intellectuals and various types of artists – an ascendant economic force representing a restructuring of industry into a more complex economic hierarchy.

In working with and celebrating the Cardiff creative community, Cardiff & Co are effectively pushing the city region alongside the likes of California’s Silicon Valley; Austin, Texas; Seattle; Bangalore; Dublin and Sweden – cities, regions and nations where there is an identified shift towards technology, research and development and the internet.

According to Florida, these economic trends are also associated with a large creative community.

The trend has not gone un-noticed by those moving into the city.

Mark Taylor, Chief Executive of Wales Millennium Centre, said:

“Since arriving in Cardiff less than a year ago I’ve been amazed by what goes on here.  It’s a young and vibrant city and this is reflected in the arts, the music scene, theatre, design and the visual arts.

“Anything that highlights the creativity and cultural vibrancy of the city to a wider audience is to be welcomed. This new showcase, @CreativeCardiff is a great way to shout about what’s going on beyond the border.  I very much hope that this will plant the seeds for what could be a major celebration of culture in Cardiff in the future.”

The @CreativeCardiff showcase will draw in existing events such as Cardiff University’s Creative Minds Festival, which will bring together a broad range of creative and cultural events, from literature talks to book clubs and cinema screenings. Creative Minds, on 28th and 29th September, also kicks off the Festival of Ideas programme for the autumn.

Richard Thomas added:

“We want to draw out those people who are involved in creative activities in the arts, culture, media, design and innovation – anything to do with being creative and edgy. The emphasis is on working with creative businesses so that their collective strength can be exploited for the good of the Cardiff city-region economy.”

The London launch of @CreativeCardiff will be followed by a Cardiff launch event on 21st September at the Wales Millennium Centre.

@CreativeCardiff will also be celebrated at the 3 November Cardiff Ambassadors Gala Dinner in Cardiff City Hall where Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC is the key note speaker.