Honeycomb September Review – It Was Buzzing!

Thu 9 Oct 2014 / News

During our first month of being the Highland delivery partners for the EU funded programme Honeycomb – Creative Works we have been to Oban (twice), Campbeltown, Portree, Eigg and Fort William We have been building a really broad and rich network of creative practitioners along the west coast, we are excited at the prospect of working with you more in the coming months Remember we would like your input, if there are events, training or sessions you would like to see in your area (the Honeycomb catchment area of Skye, Lochaber, Lochalsh, Argyll & Bute) – get in touch.

We have been all over, in all manors of transport. Early on we met Kinetic Studios at our launch of the Honeycomb seed fund - The Honey Pot - way back in July, where plans were hatched to work together. James and Duncan came along to our Oban Networking Session too, which consolidated a desire to run a workshop in their recording studio in Oban for aspiring artists and band managers Getting It Right Live was hugely popular. It highlighted the key things you need to think about when starting to perform live, how to be prepared and ensure you sound the way you want to sound on stage.

We met musicians in Campbeltown, filmmakers in Oban and aspiring games developers in Portree learning from and networking with Scottish Games Network, Scottish Documentary Institute and PRS along the way.

Despite the rain on Eigg we were warmly welcomed by Damian and Jen at Eigg Studio, hearing from Inner Ear’s Dougal Perman about his innovative interactive, film and digital projects We were treated to a first hand hexacopter demonstration from Ben at Picarus Films and learnt of the exciting plans that the Eigg folk have in mind.

Our final stop for September took us to our trade event in Fort William, an afternoon and evening of sessions focused on trans digital content topped off with a keynote from digital marketing agency Million Media MD, Neil Cartwright We set up camp in the West Highland College and invited our contacts in the industry to talk about how artists can develop their profile and career and just what ways you can get your creative content out there. How to protect and monetise that content was an important aspect of discussion. Thanks to Ludometrics, Screenage Renegede, The Wickerman Festival, Joe McAlinden,Emubands, Robert Hicks, Derek Bateman, Neil Cartwright and Maverick TV for imparting all that solid knowledge!

Neil talked avidly about the massive changes in technology we have seen in the past decade or two, the impact it has had on the creative industries and just how we keep up. Some fantastic and mind boggling stats! It was positively buzzing by the end as our audience discussed everything they had been listening to and networked with our invited speakers.

Lots more to come in the coming months with more events being planned. Keep an eye on our Honeycomb page for more programme updates, which we will, as always, communicate through our newsletters.