Andy Pratt’s European travels

Germany:

CMCI’s Prof. Andy Pratt gave a keynote lecture entitled ‘The cultural economy and the creative city’ to policy makers and academics in Mannheim on March 25th. He was speaking at a Creative City Forum organised by the City Council, and was introduced by the Mayor, a key supporter of policy to support the music industry and music performance in the city.  Germany’s first Pop-Academy  and the so-called “Musikpark” (a start up centre) are located in the suburb of “Jungbusch”. Jungbusch used to be a part of the city where harbour-workers resided and that became something like a red light district in the late 70’s and 80’s. It is now one of the focus areas of city development’s approaches in terms of creative industries. It forms the so called “Mannheim Model” to promote music industry. The conference was embedded in the Jetztmusikfestival/ Timewarp festival of electronic music.

Spain:

Andy was on a panel organised on the topic of the internationalisation of the cultural industries: prospects and challenges at the Spanish government presidency event – the EU forum on the cultural industries – held in Barcelona on March 29-30th. The event was meant to tie in with the publication later this month of a new European Green paper on the cultural and creative industries. The conference was attended by several national culture ministers, and had keynote presentations by Odile Quintin, Director- general for Education & Culture, European Commission, and Doris Pack, Chairwoman of the Committee on Culture & Education, European Parliament.