The possibility of creating a creativity hub in Southern Alberta is being explored with the support of grant funding from Alberta’s Northern and Regional Economic Development Program.
Vice President of Entrepreneurship with Economic Development Lethbridge Renae Barlow states creative industries have been doing a lot of work in the region already and it has been identified the area can be used as a backdrop location for film and television. As well there are a lot of people in the area who contribute to the industry, with their businesses doing work behind the scenes.
“We have a lot of e-sports that are happening. What we realized was there’s not a coordinated hub where all of these different players can come together for support and maybe have a bit more of a supply chain or cluster development around the creative industry,” Barlow says. “So, we’re just hoping that with this feasibility study, in which we have 16 community and industry partners working all together to gather this information, we can evaluate the potential for creating this hub in film, digital media, e-sports, and game development.”
She adds the benefit of the hub is it would create a coordinated effort, something she says only happens in flashes.
“Creating a hub would actually create a very coordinated effort toward identifying it as a cluster. So, if we have someone coming in that’s doing film, is that we can actually have a hub that can connect them with all the resources they would need to actually do that film. Or if they’re doing e-sports, we would know exactly who to connect them with to have that happen.”
Barlow explains some of the things that need to be looked at during the Creative Industries Feasibility Study include how can we connect people to these resources and whether it is possible to create entrepreneur support or business support. As well is it possible to create a network of businesses and people who can work together and support one another?
“We have an [Request for Proposal] out right now, looking for a contractor who would like to help us do this study,” Barlow says. “We’ll also have a couple of postgraduate students from [the University of Lethbridge] to help with the data collection because we’re posting quite a bit. We’re also looking for individuals or companies that are interested in being part of the study and part of the feasibility study.”
Along with the RFP, there is also a waitlist set up for people to potentially take part in round tables and a survey that will be done once a contractor is in place to conduct the exploration.
‘We just want to make sure we get all the voices heard.”
More information about the project can be found here.
