Creative State 2019 Community Engagement Outcomes Report Contents Overview 2 Background 2 How we engaged Error! Bookmark not defined. Who we reached 3 Key findings 3 Online engagement 5 Ideas Wall 5 Discussion themes 6 Formal submissions 7 Face-to-face engagement 8 First Peoples’ forums 8 Public forums 9 Next steps 10 Appendix 11 List of written submissions to engage.vic.gov.au/creative-strategy 11 1 Overview Background The 2019 Community Engagement Outcomes Report records the extensive community and sector consultation undertaken by the Victorian Government (through Creative Victoria) to inform its next creative industries strategy – Creative State. It is a requirement of the Creative Victoria Act 2017 that the Minister for Creative Industries prepares a strategy for the arts and creative industries every four years. From July to September 2019, Creative Victoria engaged people from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives to inform the development of the next four-year strategy. This included garnering views on the current state of the sector, its challenges, opportunities and aspirations; as well as new ideas for strengthening the state’s creative industries. How we engaged Creative Victoria engaged stakeholders through both online and face-to-face channels. All Victorians – whatever their connection to the creative industries – were invited to participate online via the engage.vic.gov.au platform and/or participate in a public forum. Dedicated forums were also held for First Peoples in the creative industries. A Creative Industries Advisory Group, comprising 20 members from across the state’s creative and cultural sectors, provided guidance throughout the consultation process. Online Online engagement was open to the public from 10 July to 13 September 2019. The site provided: • information about Victoria’s creative industries • guiding principles • a timeline for strategy renewal • a calendar of public forums • options for public submissions Participants were invited to contribute their insights and ideas on issues, challenges and opportunities for Victoria’s creative industries. Participants could: • post a quick idea, insight or provocation via an ‘ideas wall’ • respond to one, some or all of nine themes relevant to the creative industries • upload a formal submission • participate in a consultation workshop 2 • host their own workshop (Creative Victoria provided supporting resources on its website and invited participation from 28 peak bodies, 29 youth organisations, nine portfolio agencies and each of its funded organisations). Face-to-face Face-to-face engagements were held across Victoria during July and August 2019 – including six First Peoples forums and nine, facilitated, public forums. First Peoples Public Mildura, 1 August Wangaratta, 25 July Melbourne, 12 August Mildura, 29 July Shepparton, 15 August Bendigo, 31 July Portland, 19 August Footscray, 5 August Mornington Peninsula, 22 August Melbourne, 6 August Lakes Entrance, 27 August Frankston, 8 August Sale, 13 August South Morang, 15 August Warrnambool, 20 August Who we reached Online Total visits to engage.vic.gov.au: 12,165 Consultation followers: 278 Contributions: 865 (from 575 people) • 599 notes on the ‘Ideas Wall’ • 64 conversations • 202 formal submissions Face-to-face 48 people attended one of six First Peoples sessions 250 people attended one of nine public sessions Key findings The collective response was outstanding: from the volume of online engagements and written submissions to the quality of feedback at public forums. There is a high level of interest and investment across Victoria in the future of the state’s creative industries. Across online and face-to-face engagements, the following themes emerged frequently as either high-level challenges and issues for the sector and community, or as priority areas for new or renewed action: 3 Total People and skills • Supporting creative careers and stronger career paths • Addressing skills gaps and practitioner capability • Improving workforce experience Ideas and Innovation • Producing new work • Encouraging new ways of working • Encouraging risk and innovation Resilience and growtH • Attracting investment • Investing in creative precincts and spaces • Promoting business development (from start-ups to established) • Supporting organisations Audiences and markets • Supporting community engagement • Delivering major and other events • Promoting global engagement and trade • Applying creative services and products • Supporting regional content development • Embedding creativity, and promoting its value, across the whole of society • Increasing demand for creative outputs There was also broad recognition and support for a set of high-level principles to guide government investment in the sector. These principles include support for: • First Peoples’ perspectives, experiences, expertise and self-determination • Equity of access and participation for all Victorians • Healthy, respectful and culturally-safe working environments • Ensuring people in remote, regional and outer-metropolitan areas have equitable access to cultural experiences, creative expression and creative careers • The promotion of responsible environmental practice. 4 Online engagement Online engagement was open to the public from 10 July to 13 September 2019 at engage.vic.gov.au/creative-strategy. The site attracted a high-level of engagement, including: • 7,082 people visited the site 12,165 times • 575 people made 865 contributions • 275 people signed-up to email notifications. Activity at engage.vic.gov.au/creative-strategy, 10 July – 13 September 2019 Visitors to the site were able to provide their feedback in at least one of three ways: via an ‘Ideas Wall’; by responding to a discussion theme; or by lodging a formal submission. Ideas Wall Contributors to the Ideas Wall were asked to nominate a screen name and their postcode, before entering any open comment. Those comments – 599 in total – were then published to the site and post-moderated. 5 Site visitors were able to endorse any comment via a ‘thumbs up’ function: 3,738 ‘up-votes’ were registered. Among the most popular posts were ideas to: • Revitalise or re-purpose vacant or under-utilised public spaces for use by creative practitioners • Better and more-widely value and profile the arts (on par, for example, with sport) • Further support and promote independent creative practitioners and small-to-medium creative enterprises • Help independent creative practitioners and small-to-medium creative enterprises provide best-practice accessibility to their respective works, websites, events, publications, etc In total, contributions to the Ideas Wall covered a vast range of subjects and concerns: from greater and more novel forms of direct support for those working in the sector; to ideas on how to foster a more valued and resilient sector; to thoughts on growing sector profiles, audiences and markets. “Creative workers should be safe at work – emotionally and physically. Too many of us don’t feel we are. What can we do to keep us all safe?” Contributor to the engage.vic.gov.au/creative-strategy ‘Ideas Wall’, 2019 Discussion themes Visitors to the online site were invited to respond to one, some or all of nine themes and provocations. Participants were asked to register their screen name. Contributions were published and post-moderated. The nine discussion themes were: • Creative spaces and precincts • Diversity at all levels • Equality of access • The next generation • Building sustainability • Safety and wellbeing • Technology and its impact • Engaging globally • Growing audiences and markets Inevitably, some themes resonated more than others with participants and attracted a higher or more detailed level of response. Contributors, for example, to the ‘Creative Spaces and Precincts’ theme pointed to the need for state government, councils and other local entities to further support the creative sector and its practitioners by unlocking vacant or under- utilised spaces. This included allowing the use of empty shop fronts to showcase creative works; subsidising studio spaces (especially in regional Victoria); and new legislative frameworks to encourage the creation of new or repurposed spaces for creative use. Contributors also asked for greater (and more effective) promotion of the resources and spaces that support local creatives. 6 Contributors to the ‘Diversity at all levels’ theme sought – or provided – further understanding of the meaning and scope of ‘diversity’, as well as its application and relevance to the sector generally and to creative practitioners and audiences in particular. This included promoting and mapping diversity levels among both creative practitioners and audiences, as well as financial support to help reduce barriers to participation. Contributors called for greater recognition of First Peoples creative practice and noted the benefits to be gained from higher interactions between all generations. Across all themes, contributors (in their own way) sought a series of recurring outcomes for the sector: greater support (and profile) for individual creative practitioners and small-to-medium creative enterprises; and the wider application of creativity to all sorts of social challenges and opportunities. Formal submissions There were 202 formal submissions via the online site. This included submissions from: • 43 individuals (or submitted as a group of individuals under one name) • 20 councils • 76 arts organisations (or groups of organisations submitting