hurrah! we’ve won the regional heats for the enterprising britain awards, which make us officially the most enterprising place in yorkshire & the humber (and we were up against the likes of leeds…).
next step is the national finals in which the judges will visit scarborough and see for themselves renaissance, the creative industries and woodend in action. that’s on 19th june. best start cleaning the studio…

thud. that’s the sound of may’s renaissance news hitting doormats with the latest news from scarborough’s urban renaissance initiative.

kapow! that’s the sound of scarborough’s cultural explosion as documented in the centrespread by the arts and culture forum.

ping. that’s the light switching on in people’s heads as they realise what a culturally vibrant part of britain we live in.

tomorrow i’m in leeds at invitation of scarborough borough council to help present scarborough’s entry for the enterprising britain awards. we have been shortlisted as a yorkshire and humberside entry [1 of 4 shortlisted entries] and the regional winner will go through to represent yorks & humber in the national awards.

the scarborough contingent is david archer - the council’s strategic director of operations, andrew clay - director of woodend creative workspace, and myself. our presentation will be on renaissance and the role the creative industries is playing in the regeneration of the town. wish us luck.

at last we’re allowed to tell you… we’ve been keeping quiet about coastival - a new 3-day arts festival taking place in scarborough in 2009.

the festival which takes place in the otherwise sleepy month of february pulls together organisers from many of the yorkshire coast’s main festivals including beached, acoustic gathering, the jazz festival and it will be the new home of the festival of light. festival strands include dance, theatre, spoken word, visual arts, music, film, comedy and a full children’s and youth programme. events will take place across venues in scarborough. you can see it as a taster for the rest of the year’s festivals or as a new rich mix of the very best art and culture yorkshire has to offer.

we have been commissioned to develop a visual identity for the festival, a website and work on ideas for a promotional campaign over summer 2008. we also came up with the name ‘coastival’. the signs we’ve been teasing you with are the start of the publicity campaign [bringing yorkshire to the seaside], photos below are from yesterday’s launch and photocall with the yorkshire post [on page 8 of today’s edition] and scarborough evening news [their story here]. photo above is of mezzzo-soprano victoria wright helping launch the festival.

you can catch me talking about our plans to tour yorkshire with an opera singer on yorkshire coast radio today and you may have heard festival organiser wendy clews of create on radio york yesterday. more about the summer tour as the plans firm up…

in the meantime put the dates in your diary: coastival - february 17-19 2009.