Creative Coalition Festival 2022 line-up revealed

Creative UK has revealed further plans for Creative Coalition Festival 2022, the UK’s biggest festival for the Creative Industries. Featuring over 200 speakers, across more than 50 sessions on six stages, the diverse three-day programme of events is presented online from 1-3 February 2022.

Bringing together the UK’s finest creators, innovators, leaders and emerging talent, Creative Coalition Festival 2022 features inspiring talks and panels, live performances, practical workshops and networking events – all streamed from across the UK, open-access and free to attend.

The 2022 festival line-up includes leading television writer and showrunner Jed Mercurio, award-winning music composer Renell Shaw, Chair of Editorial Board & Editor-at-Large, US of the Financial Times Gillian Tett, General Manager UK & IE, TikTok Rich Waterworth, CEO, British Film Institute Ben Roberts, designer and inventor Tom Lawton, writer Natasha Carthew, Director of Creative Diversity, BBC June Sarpong OBE, Creative Director & Co-Founder of Eco-Age Livia Firth, Chair of Arts Council England Sir Nicholas Serota, artist Dr Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, designer Henry Holland, Director of V&A East Gus Casely-Hayford, Chair, Times UP UK Dame Heather Rabbatts, singer-songwriter Rebecca Ferguson, and Founder and CEO, Blue Moon Dr Joanna Abeyei MBE, with Creative UK’s Chief Executive Caroline Norbury MBE. The festival also includes live performances and immersive experiences from musicians and artists GAIKA and Love Ssega, illustrator and cartoonist Ruby etc, and street art expert Chris Pensa.

Celebrating the achievements of the UK’s world-leading Creative Industries and offering an open forum to address the issues facing the sector, Creative Coalition Festival 2022 looks to drive real change for the collective future of creativity.

Hosted by TV and Radio Presenter Swarzy, Day One explores how to Reimagine the creative sector, with sessions including Reimagining the Landscape, Resetting the Narrative, a discussion on how creatives can take control of their own stories and empower others to do the same, and Cultural Change Starts with Us, an exploration into why institutions need to first look within to create impact and change across the Creative Industries. How to Sustain a Movement: Punks, Poets, Rebels features prominent creative activists examining how they effect change through creativity and storytelling, and in A Case for Creativity, leading creatives argue the crucial role of creativity as a tool for tomorrow’s discoveries, innovations, and experiments.

Day Two looks at ways to Redefine the Creative Industries. Rethinking the Economy examines how to rethink and redesign the creative economy for a fairer and more prosperous world, The Class Debate asks why working class people are underrepresented in the creative sector workforce, why this matters and how to increase representation, and Black Lives Matter, What Next? looks at the impacts of movements like Black Lives Matter and how to sustain change in the creative sector. Improving working conditions in the Creative Industries is an important theme for Day Two with Freelance Champions questioning how the sector can protect and support its vital freelance workers, Breaking Down Barriers interrogating the reality currently facing disabled artists and creative workers, and Eradicating Bullying & Harassment discussing why bullying and harassment are still so prevalent across the Creative Industries, what their impacts are and how to eliminate them.

To close Creative Coalition Festival 2022 on Day Three, sessions focus on a mission to Reignite the future of creativity. During Designing a Greener Future, speakers discuss how creativity and storytelling have the power to influence change, re-shape our narratives, and protect our planet, and a session continuing the theme of using culture and creativity to influence, inspire and enable environmental action is streamed live from the Rainforest Biome at the Eden Project, Cornwall.