In April, audiences imagined the future of Bristol Temple Quarter through a moving and cinematic performance called Give Me Back My Broken Night and 16 imaginative films were created in 117 hours deriving inspiration from areas within the Enterprise Zone as part of the Encounters 0117 digital film challenge.

Now the commissioning project is nearing the end and it will be going out with a serious bang. Here’s a round-up of some of the things to look out for in the next few weeks:

Second Chances, May 15^th

Featuring a series of specially commissioned short films and lens-based works, Second Chances is a theatrical guided tour and pop-up cinema experience, mixing the past, present and future of Temple Quarter.

It opens with the premier screening of Each Shining Hour, by Joe Magee, and closes with the premier screening of The Zone, by Nathan Hughes. The tour will be followed by a special debate hosted by Burges Salmon and featuring Colin Skellett, chair of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, that will explore the future of the Enterprise Zone and ideas around reinvention, progressive urbanism and seeing things differently.

See more here: www.second-chances.co.uk.

BikeTAG Play Test: Colour Keepers May 19^th & 20^th

Part exploration, part battle, part collaboration, part art experience, Colour Keepers is a fun opportunity to play on bikes in the city, to set colours free and co-create light trails using led lights. With five colours to play for, players will explore the Zone as they battle to win, trying to avoid Dark Matters at all times, who has the power to capture colour.

This extraordinary free event, scheduled for dusk on Sat 18 and Sun 19 May (20:15, 20:40, 21:00,21:20, 21:40 each night ) will be used as a public Play Test to gather feedback from players. It’s the first game created using the BikeTAG system, and the very first time it will be played with a full line-up of particpants. Come and be part of the experience , try out a brand new game at a very early stage, and then let the artists have your thoughts on the experience.

Book your free ticket from Watershed Box Office.

Festival of Ideas: Creative Gateway

Do you have an idea for something that could provide a better welcome to the city at Temple Meads Station, help visitors learn about the area and Bristol, and guide them on their way to destinations?

There was an excellent response to January’s call for ideas and a shortlist of ten has been drawn up. The winner will be announced on May 20th.

Shortlisted projects here: http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/2013/news/short-list-announced-for-bristol-temple-meads-quarter-gateway-project/

Anna Johnson: Bristol Billboards
Comenius Associates Ltd: Isambard’s Kingdom of Scientific Adventures
Coombs Jones Architects+Makers: Cabinet of Curiosities
Dan Gregory, Common Capital and Pop-Up Bristol: Tickety-Boo!
Dave Morgan-Davies: Glow
Doug Francisco – The Invisible Circus: The Time Tunnels
Jnr Hacksaw: Transient
Joe Melia: Here
Marcus Lanyon: Reverse Heritage Graffiti
Pubali Bardhan Dickens: BRISTOL: Say it with Letters

Praxis Makes Perfect – 23^rd May, 8pm, Motion nightclub

In a double first for Bristol, Mayfest welcomes National Theatre Wales to the city and stages at Motion, the vast club in the heart of the Enterprise Zone.

Enter the exclusive world of Praxis Makes Perfect. Become part of an immersive gig imagining the life of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the millionaire Italian communist at the heart of many of the most extraordinary events of the 20^th century. Smuggle a manuscript out of Russia, be tortured by the CIA, play basketball with Fidel Castro. With Feltrinelli, anything is possible.

Conceived and performed by Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip of Neon Neon.

Tickets £15, booking from www.bristolticketshop.co.uk

Temple Songs: The Beautiful Machine  – May 25th

Also part of Mayfest, The Beautiful Machine:  an acapella chorus led by composer and director, Jennifer Bell.

Over the duration of the festival, the ensemble will be staging original songs and soundscapes exclusively for people working in the Bristol Temple Quarter.

Jenn is also inviting staff and the public into an empty office space within Bristol Temple Quarter to experience all four songs composed for the project, a unique song cycle and an intricate, heartbreaking celebration of the quiet victories of every day.

The Enterprise Zone location for this event is currently secret and will be revealed shortly before the event. Tickets £5, booking from Bristol Old Vic – t.0117 987 7877.

Spike Island – New Project Space in Bristol Temple Quarter

Groups of artists, curators and producers are invited to submit proposals for an exciting opportunity to establish a new project space for Bristol from July 2013.

This project aims to re-energise independent artist-led activity in the city and to help artists explore the potential of Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. Spike Island will work with the successful group to find and secure a suitable space within Bristol Temple Quarter.

The project will receive support from Spike Island staff alongside a budget of £1,000 per month for six months.

Voxelate: a new sculpture commission by Luke Jerram

Temple Meads station, date tbc

Voxelate is a series of 3D pixelated sculptures being developed exclusively for Bristol Temple Quarter by world-renowned artist, Luke Jerram.

The sculptures act as three-dimensional pixelated portraits. As with a pixelated two dimensional image made of squares, from a distance the sculptures can be easily read. As the viewer gets closer, the object will appear to fragment into cubes.

Luke Jerram is known worldwide for his large scale public engagement artworks. His celebrated street pianos installation, ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’, has been presented in over 35 cities so far, reaching an audience to date of over 3 million people around the world. In 2010, Jerram was voted ABC ‘Person of the week’.

Find out more here: http://www.lukejerram.com/projects/voxelate

Friska produce fresh and tasty food (eat in or take away) inspired from countries around the world, made using ingredients to be proud of. They believe in training and developing their teams and are currently working on a number of really exciting ideas which will help their staff grow with the company.

Friska say they are more than just a food company. They love to get involved with organisations and events that they feel passionately about and are currently working with Deki Partnership and Re-Launching the Good Food Network. Their Environmental policy is for zero waste to landfill. If anyone would like to partner with Friska on any great projects please do get in touch.

Who started Friska? Meet Ed & Griff

Ed and Griff both went to Bath University where they studied Economics. Despite not knowing each another whilst at University the two met at a networking event in Bristol and decided to go into a business together.

Meet Ed // Prior to starting Friska, Ed was based in the SETsquared technology incubator, run by the University of Bristol. During his time in SETsquared Ed was testing the viability of a getting a technology business to market. Before that he worked as an Economist at the property consultancy DTZ in Bristol. In Friska Ed takes lead responsibility for finance, systems & procedures and sales analysis. Link in with Ed

Meet Griff // Prior to starting Friska Griff worked at the HM Treasury for a placement year, and looked into starting a technology business before settling on the idea of a food business. Prior to launching Friska, Griff worked for both The Real Olive Company and Boston Tea Party to get some experience in the food industry. In Friska, Griff takes lead responsibility for Business Development, HR and operations.

Where are we going? All Over the place

Over the next 10 years Friska want to bring our Feel Good Food to cities and university towns around the country…watch this space.

Don’t forget… 10% off your first order with Friska if you mention this newsletter!

www.friskafood.com
@friskafood

Heart + Soul is a stunning solo show by Jody, one of Bristol’s leading street artists. This is his most ambitious show to date and features over 30 new canvasses.

Jody says: “It’s work that I’ve invested everything into; a year of planning and working well into the early hours over the last six months. A personal journey which I’ve put my heart and soul into, hence its name.”

The show is being produced by Mike Bennett, one of the founders of See No Evil – the highly successful street art festival that has taken place on Nelson Street the last two summers.

Mike says: “I’m delighted to be working alongside Jody on this project. He’s one of Bristol’s street art legends and the work he’s produced for the show, is in my opinion, his best to date.”

Heart + Soul is open to the public from 10-15^th May in the Paintworks Event Space and all canvasses are available to buy.

Find out more here: www.seenoevilgallery.com/pages/heart-soul

Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson said: “I am delighted that Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone is partnering the Post’s Business Awards this year. These prestigious awards honour some of our most talented businesses, from small start-up companies with big ideas to the much larger and more established organisations. We want to recognise them for the contribution they make to our city and support them every way we can in this difficult economic climate.”

The Business Awards have become an important part of Bristol’s business calendar and this year they’re going to be bigger and better than ever, with new categories added and the partnership with BTQEZ. The awards will be held in the iconic Brunel’s Passenger Shed at Temple Meads station on June 26^th. Nominations can be made online at http://www.digital-thisis.co.uk/bristol/bristolbusinessawards2013/.

The Awards were formally launched by Sarah Pullen, Managing Director of Bristol News & Media, Post Editor Mike Norton, and Bristol Mayor, George Ferguson at Harvey’s Wine Bar on the 27^th of March.

#PostBizAwards

My own thinking was informed by a wide range of people from Boris Johnson to Tom Riordan, CEO of Leeds Council and Michael Ansah, Executive Director for property at Dell.

It’s clear that we have a quality proposition in Bristol & Bath – world-leading media, technology and engineering as well as great business services, and that’s absolutely vital.

Investors are also looking for a great talent-pool – also a strength here – and a vibrancy that comes from a youthful city. Multinationals are focussed on growth markets – Russia, China, Africa and will place business there to be culturally close to customers, so a factor is the rate that the UK grows, and how this reflects in different regions.

I also had a great sense of collaboration amongst the UK cities – London is clearly the leader, and perceived internationally as “the UK”, but the alignment of the core cities – Manchester, Leeds, Bristol etc. – and the devolution of power inherent in the Heseltine Report can mean the end of the “zero sum game” where a benefit to one location is detrimental to the others.

MIPIM is the place for briefings and contacts – seeing how Manchester promotes itself, hearing how Leeds is delivering a 13,500 seat arena this summer (opened with a Bruce Springsteen concert), and working through issues with the team from Birmingham’s city-centre Enterprise Zone provides a unique and intense experience.

It’s great that the power to deliver is heading to the cities – the understanding of a place helps joint projects between public and private sectors that can deliver benefits in a long term – in the words of Tom Riordan  “We can make our own weather” – and the outlook is definitely sunny around here!

Beginning with a blank canvas at the start of the exhibition, the stand was decorated throughout the show by visual artists, creating a stunning backdrop for the launch of the Invest in Bristol and Bath service.

Through their artwork illustrators represented key themes of the region, including innovation, creativity and connectivity.

Joe McGeehan, Chair of Invest in Bristol and Bath reports that the stand was very effective in attracting attention. “We wanted to achieve maximum impact from a modest scale stand. Our visual artists certainly achieved that. Our stand became a talking point at MIPIM.

“Our aim was to explain how this region is different. We didn’t want to look corporate – we wanted to reflect our region’s creativity and energy.”

Joe McGeehan is delighted with progress achieved at MIPIM: “In demonstrating that this region is open for business it was extremely important that the Mayor of Bristol and Leader of B&NES were present as well as senior representatives from South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

“These individuals worked extremely hard from dawn to dusk. Our delegation took part in some 200 meetings over the three days. There was a real sense of collaboration and partnership. Individuals from our four local authorities promoted the whole of the West of England.”

Strong private sector support was a real strength of the West of England presence: “Our private sector delegates were really impressed that the unitary authorities were working together.

“They stressed the need to demonstrate collaboration and scale to be visible and taken seriously across the world. Our private sector partners liked the stand and the concept. They were able to hold their own meetings here.

 “A number of West of England companies have already asked to sign up as supporters next year. We have a target that through self financing, that the whole of our MIPIM presence will be cost neutral to the public sector within three years. We are on track to achieve this.” 

Joe McGeehan believes that there was real resonance in the presentation of the regional offering: “The feedback is that people liked the combination of Bristol and Bath – two of Europe’s most admired cities, with superb transport links, flourishing high growth industries, offering an unrivalled quality of life and cultural appeal, reflecting in their attracting and retaining a skilled workforce and the brightest graduates.

“But, as we continually stressed at MIPIM, it isn’t just a tale of two cities. Behind Bristol and bath lies a rich, well-connected and compact region, vaunting world-beating aerospace, advanced engineering, micro engineering, creative industries, environmental technologies and services as well as scope for distribution and logistics facilities.

“It is a fantastic story that we have to tell – and we have only just begun telling it!”

Here are some of the images of the vegetables growing on the Diesel Depot.

Special thanks to the Severn Project for the images.

How long have you been going?

The ramp park for BMX, scooters and skating, has been going since around 2007, with the addition of the music venue since around the beginning of 2009. The newest addition to the venue is the building of two large fully fitted recording studios as well as ten or more smaller studio spaces available to let – this work should be competed by the summer of 2013.

For the Ramp Park it was a continuation of a business that had previously traded on the site but had unfortunately been forced to close. We saw a way that it could be run profitably and so went for it.

For the music venue and nightclub it was a culmination of a few things. Primarily we were just responding to a demand from Bristol’s music promoters and nightclubbers. The general feeling was that there wasn’t a large space to host big dance music events in the city, or even the south west for that matter. Other venues were counter-productive to atmosphere or had simply fallen into disrepair over the years and people didn’t like going to them any more. We ran our first few events on TENs (Temporary Event Notices) and they were all incredibly successful – so we successfully applied for a full licence and the rest, as they say, is history.

With the music studios again we are responding to a need from Bristol’s musicians and promoters who are having problems finding good value studio space in the city. As you can imagine a lot of these guys pass through our doors very regularly to either perform or to watch other musicians so we talk to them a lot. We took over a new building in the complex and when considering what to do with it – building studios became the obvious choice.

As explained above we are a pretty unique collection of different businesses under one roof. We are a ramp park, a nightclub, music venue and also now music studios and rehearsal spaces. We also let other groups use our main room space on the days when it’s not in use by us, for example local dance and break-dancing classes take place during the evenings mid-week and we let them use this space free of charge.

I think the whole business is pretty quirky – it is probably the only one of it’s kind in the country if not the whole world. The fact is that all the different aspects of the business, although completely different, compliment each other really well. We have young mothers and fathers who will bring their young children down on the park on the weekend – and then chat to us about a gig they had been to at the venue a couple of weeks before. Their kids grow up and once they get to the age of 15-16 start talking to us about their favourite DJs or Producers and how they can’t wait to be old enough to come to the events. Then these same guys start coming to our events and become inspired to make their own music – and we will have studio space available for them to use. As far as we are aware we are a one-of-a-kind business.

Full time we have around 7-8 staff, but across the business with part-time staff and event staff we probably employ directly and indirectly around 70-80 people.

We have been here for quite a while now – before the Enterprise Zone came into being. Whilst we are excited about the project as a whole we are also apprehensive. We want and need to make sure that businesses that are already here don’t get forgotten or pushed out in favour of new businesses coming into the area. We also need to make sure we are not at a disadvantage and that benefits and attractions to encourage businesses to relocate to the area are also available to our neighbours and us. Finally we need to make sure that the planners understand and take account of the needs of the existing businesses here. For example if they decide to build a whole load of residential outside our front door then our business will be very badly affected.

Basically all of the above. We also want to see young, fresh and creative businesses being attracted to the area. Want we don’t want to see is the continued march of high-rise glass fronted office buildings from the centre towards us. We want small and entrepreneurial companies coming to the area – not big faceless corporations.

www.motionbristol.com

The Regional Growth Fund will provide a mixture of direct support for private sector investments and private / public partnerships. All projects should lever private sector investment for long term growth and private sector employment.

£2.4bn was awarded in the first 3 rounds. An additional £350m is available to bid for in Round 4 and was announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement as part of a range of measures to target help for businesses and rebalance the economy to drive growth. The minimum threshold for Round 4 applications will be £1m.

This fourth round will close at noon on March 20th 2013, however bids asking for LEP support must be sent to us by noon on Thursday 14th March.

Provided that projects and/or programmes meet RGF criteria and reflect local priorities, the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership would like to offer support to those who plan to bid for Round 4 funding in the West of England.

For further information and how to apply, please see our website:

http://www.westofenglandlep.co.uk/funding/regional-growth-fund