10th November 2020 17:30:00
Talk/Webinar, Panel debate, Exhibition/demonstration, Interactive activity
The event will explore small independent creative businesses and the owner’s experience and journey during the pandemic. It will focus on how the business that is embedded in the passion economy has coped, changed and been managed during the turbulent times of creating and selling. Firstly, it will explore some empirical research findings exploring how creative micro-business owners have coped, managed and even thrived during the pandemic. From this, it will uncover how many business owners first started their journey of entrepreneurialism and the impetus to do so e.g. socio-cultural issues and boundaries of society, lack of flexibility or inequality and searching for their happy mode of living. The focus of the event will be on the pandemic, and how Covid-19 has influenced and impacted lives for these micro-business owners,the community and their customers. The panel of business owners will talk about how the pandemic has harnessed or stifled their business and their journey of managing and coping with the business during the different stages of Covid-19. For instance, every aspect of Covid-19 needed to be considered, the lockdown and where and how they worked, the way social distancing measures placed a halt on all face to face selling, governmental initiatives and eligibility, , the increase in online shopping, the expectation of free labour for NHS, changing and pivoting business strategy to appeal to customers current mindset. The discussion and Q&As with the community will hopefully discuss how creative businesses can be further supported and possible initiatives that can assist micro-businesses and harness the burgeoning creative community as well as consumers wanting to shop more locally and independent. The event aims to highlight the research and issues of social-cultural and economic changes within society and the marketplace.
This website is an archived version of the 2020 festival, visit the main website for this years events