Glasgow wins Creative Cities bid

Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon was among the speakers at the 2019 Creative Cities Convention, held in Cardiff earlier this month

Glasgow has been chosen to host the UK’s third Creative Cities Convention (CCC), which will take place next year.

The Scottish city beat Newcastle/Gateshead and Nottingham to win the bid to host the two-day convention, which provides a meeting place for people working in creative media across the UK and travels to a different city each year.

Glasgow’s bid was led by Sandy Robertson, head of production at Raise the Roof Productions, on behalf of the Scottish Production Talent Forum, a group made up of local independent production companies, broadcasters and other creative bodies.

Glasgow was recently chosen as one of Channel 4’s three new creative hubs, alongside English cities Bristol and Leeds, where the UK broadcaster’s new national headquarters will be based.

The second edition of the CCC was held in Wales capital Cardiff earlier this month. It featured industry speakers including C4 CEO Alex Mahon and Channel 5 director of programmes Ben Frow. Around 350 media delegates attended. The inaugural edition was held in Leeds in 2018.

The event is jointly funded by the UK’s terrestrial broadcasters, BBC, ITV, C4 and C5, and independent producers’ trade association Pact. It is overseen by CCC director Ruth Pitt.

“With the BBC’s new dedicated channel for Scotland now on the air and Channel 4 preparing a new creative hub in the heart of the city, there couldn’t be a better time for the convention to come to Glasgow,” said Susan Aitken, leader of Glasgow City Council.

Pact CEO John McVay added: “The CCC is going from strength to strength as a platform to really explore both the issues and opportunities that companies in the Nations and Regions face and we look forward to continuing the dialogue in Glasgow in 2020.”

Dates for the 2020 convention in Glasgow will be announced in the autumn.