Freelancing and Self Employment in the Creative Industries' Event

Freelancing, I think is a route that the majority of we creatives (including me) must aspire to, because it gives us the freedom to do what we love and develop our career around it. Which is why when we received an email the other day about this event I was really excited to attend.  


Yesterdays (12th Jan) event began with introductory speaker Kevin McManus, (Director of Merseyside ACME), giving a talk about ACME, a body which was created in 1997 to support and develop the Creative Industries Sector in Merseyside. He spoke about other start up schemes such as 'Vision and Media' who help to grow the digital and creative industry in England's Northwest by delivering projects and programmes that help creative companies and individuals. Beforehand I didn't even know these organisations existed. As far as I was concerned, after uni I would be alone. So to find out about this was really very comforting! I hope that one day I can make use of these opportunities. 


The prospect of the Kin 2 Kin network was something I found really exciting too. It is a professional 'Myspace', where entrepreneurs can create their own profile about their business, something which would work well as an online portfolio or even as an advertisement to sell work and to inform people of events  one may be organising.

The next talk, 'Top Tips for surviving as a freelance' by Neil Lewis (leader of Media Modo) was mainly about networking and creating a business plan. Yet another thing I hadn't given much thought to, but I am certain this information will be an invaluable resource in the future. One piece of advice he gave was to create your own website This is something I would really like to learn to do for myself. Another was to consider how you will be paid, by hour? or by project? I think personally I would choose the latter.

  

The afternoon's session was ‘Speed dating’ with industry experts Lucy Byrne (from Dot-Art) and Alex Corina, ( Freelancing Artist). It was very good to get an insight from people who are actually in the business and to hear their thoughts on how it works. Although after listening I realise I may have been seeing  the life of an artist through rose tinted glasses, but it has by no means put me off pursuing such a career. It has, however, furthered my intentions of getting a more stable job as support to begin with.

The finale of the day was a a panel questions and answer session with people and agencies that are avaianle to help starting businesses.  Again it was very interesting to hear the ins and outs of the industry from a variety of perspectives. 

Overall the day really helped me to think about the furture in a more realistic manner. I plan to visit the carrers adviser to discuss what is possible for me after univertisy.