Using the Music is Black exhibition at the V&A, the East Bank Festival was inaugurated with 4 festival weekends running across Summer 2026. Using the festival and exhibition as a catalyst, the East Bank Creative Academy transformed a major cultural event into a live workplace for emerging creative talent. The Creative Academy provided paid freelance commissions, professional development and industry exposure for young creatives living and working in East London.

Turning a Festival into a Creative Workplace

The Academy was created to give 18-30 year olds from Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest the chance to gain meaningful paid work within the creative industries. Participants worked directly on the delivery of the East Bank Festival across a range of disciplines, including:

  • Event production
  • Photography
  • Videography
  • Content creation and editing
  • Audio and lighting technical support
  • Creative communications and marketing

Over the summer, 15 freelancers were commissioned to work across the festival, receiving professional rates for their work while building skills, networks and industry experience. Whilst being housed at the Good Growth Hub and with A New Direction’s employability specialists, the freelancer cohort became part of the teams responsible for delivering the festival itself, working alongside partners including Continental Drifts, East Bank and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park marketing team.

Championing Local and Diverse Talent

In line with the Good Growth Hub’s remit to support hyper-local talent, the East Bank Creative Academy followed suit. Each freelancer recruited lived within one of the four Olympic boroughs, with participants living an average of just 3.5km from Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The cohort reflected the communities celebrated through the festival itself, with 67% identifying as Black or Black British and many coming from backgrounds traditionally under-represented within the creative industries.

For many participants, working on a festival dedicated to Black British music and culture created a powerful sense of belonging and representation. Freelancers consistently described the experience as culturally affirming, highlighting the importance of seeing Black creatives represented not only on stage but throughout the production, marketing and technical teams behind the event.

Delivering Outstanding Creative Work

Freelancers created content that played a central role in promoting the festival, producing videos, photography and social media assets that reached large audiences. Content created by the Academy cohort generated more than 268,000 views across six social media posts, with vox-pop videos becoming some of the strongest-performing content throughout the festival campaign.

Festival partners consistently praised the quality of the freelancers' work, describing it as highly professional and requiring very few revisions. All participating employers reported being very satisfied with the quality of outputs produced by the cohort.

“From our perspective, the quality of the content that we got from the freelancers was… really high.” Harry Butterwick, QEOP marketing team

Building Confidence, Skills and Professional Networks

The Academy successfully delivered on its ambition to help early-career creatives develop professionally through real-world experience.

By the end of the programme:

  • 90% of participants said the quality of their professional networks had improved.
  • 90% said their peer networks had grown stronger.
  • 80% reported increased confidence in freelancing.
  • All surveyed freelancers said they were satisfied with their experience.
  • All employer partners reported observing growth and development within the cohort.

Many participants spoke about gaining confidence in live-event environments, learning to work with clients and briefs, and developing practical skills that can only be acquired through genuine professional experience.

Why this matters

The East Bank Creative Academy sits squarely within the Mayor of London’s priorities for the creative economy. The draft new London Plan, published for consultation in July 2026, estimates that culture and the creative industries contribute around £50 billion a year to London’s economy and account for one in seven jobs in the capital. Its policies on culture and the creative industries and on access to employment and skills set the planning framework for protecting cultural activity and connecting Londoners to the jobs it creates.

The London Growth Plan, launched in February 2025, names the creative industries among the city’s growth sectors, alongside financial and professional services, the experience economy and international education. It also commits to an Inclusive Talent Strategy to improve the diversity and skills of London’s workforce.

The labour market evidence shows why inclusive routes into the creative sector matter. GLA Economics found that London’s creative industries supported 795,500 jobs in 2021, 14.7% of all jobs in the capital, and that over a quarter of these (26.6%) were held by self-employed workers, nearly twice the rate in the rest of London’s economy. Freelance skills are therefore central to working in the sector. Additionally, the workforce is less diverse than London as a whole, as people from Black backgrounds held just 3.9% of creative industries jobs, compared with 9.1% across all sectors, and people from ethnic minority and working-class backgrounds have around half the chance of working in the sector of those from white, privileged backgrounds. Also, four in five jobholders have a degree.

Against this policy context, one of the most significant achievements of the Creative Academy is its immediate impact on career progression. Several freelancers have secured new opportunities directly as a result of the programme, with some being rebooked for further events, others were recommended for future work by festival partners, and one participant progressed into stage-management responsibilities during the final festival weekend. Another freelancer has since taken on additional audio technician work, while others have secured freelance contracts and collaborative opportunities through contacts made during the programme.

The East Bank Creative Academy demonstrates the power of combining culture, place and opportunity. By embedding paid freelance roles within a major public festival, there is a model that gives local young creatives the chance to build careers while contributing meaningfully to a significant cultural event.

A key focus for the Good Growth Hub team is creating ongoing paid work for the cohort so that the freelancers continue with their commissions. As a result, the cohort have created this portfolio deck providing insight to who they each are, what their specialisms are and how they can be contacted. Over the coming months we have committed to launching a more public facing talent directory as means of raising access for and to great local talent. In the meantime, please download this resource and reach out this year’s cohort.