Ballarat Creative City Strategy

Three phases of community consultation were applied to develop Ballarat’s Creative City Strategy. These phases were intense and innovative, designed to bring the creative community into the heart of decision making. People envisioned the future of Ballarat through creative means – from play, to drawing and making.

The strategy is dedicated to increasing creative participation, attracting and supporting creative talent and developing a world-class creative city. Our intrinsic spirit is applied to consolidating Ballarat as an internationally-notable centre for arts and culture, and applying it to our city’s continuous innovation, economic growth and social sustainability.

The Creative City Strategy is being staggered in implementation across the entire business of the city of Ballarat. For creative thinking to become central to the community, it is important that implementation is tailored to delivering the required amount of impetus to those who are at different points of the creative spectrum. We have crafted the implementation plans to respond to these groups:
- CORE: a creative community at the heart of our city. They have longevity and heavy personal investment in the city.

The Creative City Strategy is being staggered in implementation across the entire business of the city. For creative thinking to become central to the community, it is important implementation is tailored to delivering the required amount of impetus to those who are at different points of the creative spectrum.

We have crafted implementation plans to respond:
- CORE: To serve our creative community at the very heart of our city.
- EXTEND: To connect with a wider general community
- ATTRACT: To bring newer voices to our growing creative city
- BROKER: To make the most of external opportunity
- MONITOR: To track success.

The innovation in our Creative City is in the way it is positioned to engage and share responsibility across all aspects of the community. The traditional form of strategic planning is for the Council to shoulder the burden of implementation, however our Creative City Strategy is designed to be implemented by all members of the community. The responsibilities, actions and initiatives are shared by all, rather concentrated into the hands of a few. All groups within the community are expected to have a stake in the creative success of the city.

• A dedication to best creative thinking
• A blending of traditional arts and culture programming with emerging creative industries
• A dedication to data tracking and monitoring in order to be able to clearly articulate the impact the creative industries can have as a sector.