Creative Cape Town

Integral to Creative Cape Town’s mandate is communicating the developments, trends, opportunities and news about the creative and knowledge economy in Cape Town central city. Information is key in developing a proactive creative milieu, a prerequisite to Cape Town becoming a truly creative city. Creative Cape Town’s communication is aimed primarily at the creative and knowledge sectors in the city (as well as those in South Africa and abroad), government officials in the city and province, and other key opinion leaders who could play a role in making Cape Town a more creative city.

Creative Cape Town has a number of channels it uses to reach these diverse audiences, including print, online and interpersonally through forums and breakfasts. We work to develop cross-cutting platforms that promote design and cultural tourism and so showcase the creativity of the city such as the bid for World Design Capital.

CREATIVE CAPE TOWN E-NEWS
Creative Cape Town’s e-newsletter comes out monthly with interesting news and views on the creative climate in the city. To stay in the loop, register to receive our newsletter. Help us stay in the loop by mailing information regarding relevant events and successes to aziza@capetownpartnership.co.za. Before you do, have a look through our newsletter archives to see what kinds of things we have focused on in the past.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Creative Cape Town is extremely active on social media platforms. Join our Creative Cape Town Facebook page, and Twitter feed for up to the minute news. Our YouTube channel includes a number of specially created videos as well as an extensive playlist relevant to understanding Cape Town and creative city thinking. We can also be found on DesignMind – a virtual networking space for design professionals.

CREATIVE CAPE TOWN ANNUAL
The Creative Cape Town Annual has been produced in partnership with Art South Africa for the last three years. The small print run of 5 000 copies is distributed to the creative industries in the central city and to key opinion leaders and government officials. A limited number of copies are sold through independent book stores.

CREATIVE CAPE TOWN CLUSTERS
The Creative Cape Town Clusters programme is a networking platform to enable creatives to meet, share and promote themselves. It includes breakfasts and forums with inspirational speakers. In 2010, the clusters programme helped set up the Cape Town Design Network.

MAPS
Our research into the creative sector in Cape Town central city (from Mouille Point to Salt River) has resulted in a series of online maps showing the location of creative businesses. We have also curated a cultural tourism map to help people navigate the arts, culture and heritage sites of the city. We aim to give a fresh reading of Cape Town, one rooted both in the city’s history and its contemporary cosmopolitan culture.

FOCUS ON DESIGN
On the request of partners we have attempted to find opportunities that platform a broad range of creative industry interests.  Our focus on design has seen us bid for the title of World Design Capital 2014, help establish the Cape Town Design Network, and project manage the establishment of The Fringe: Cape Town’s Design and Innovation District. All these initiatives help connect the disparate aspects of Cape Town’s design sector, provide opportunities for cross-sectoral engagement, and bring together government, business and academic institutions in the making of a strong creative and knowledge economy.

SHOWCASE: CREATIVE WEEK CAPE TOWN
Creative Week Cape Town, in partnership with The Loerie Awards, (South Africa’s premier advertising awards ceremony) is an annual showcase of the creative sector in Cape Town. It is a user-generated event that Creative Cape Town coordinates and markets heavily. It was established as a legacy event of the World Design Capital 2014 bid.

FOCUS ON CULTURAL TOURISM
We have committed to develop a strong cultural tourism focus in the central city from 2012 to 2014. The cultural tourism map is part of our ongoing effort to help market events and key cultural nodes in the city, and we have been helping build partnerships between different agencies who work in the area, particularly those around the Company’s Garden.

We have also worked extensively on a marketing and redevelopment strategy for The Cape Town City Hall, arguing that the space should become a dedicated cultural centre. In this regard, we are running a 10-part music programme in The City Hall, supported by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, as part of our commitment to re-imagining the venue.

We also aim to heighten awareness around how history and memory connects to contemporary culture, and so have been involved in initiatives like Goemarati, the Goemarati compliation CD and the Goematronics Remix Competition.

PARTNERS
In our work we recognise that we are one player in a group of many involved in the development of the creative and knowledge economy of Cape Town – there are over 18 000 people working in the sector and more than 1 000 creative businesses in the Central City alone. Key partnerships are therefore critical, enabling us to work more effectively and for our influence to be more widespread. As such, we sometimes refer interested parties to agencies who may be better suited to help meet their needs.

Please refer to our FAQ for more information.