The age of the creative economy has arrived, with serious implications for how public and private sector leaders conceive of economic development, urban planning, community development, society and culture. How to do it? The Creative City Summit is a full-day annual conference that focuses on understanding and putting creative economy theories into practice. Opening on the evening of Wednesday, September 8, 2004 with a reception at St. Petersburg's Salvador Dali Museum and continuing the next day with a series of sessions and keynote speeches, the meeting will emphasize metrics and tangible return on investment to make a strong business case for implementing creative economy strategies.
Creative Cities Summit 2004 will bring together some of the leading thinkers and doers in such diverse areas as urban planning, economic and community development, entrepreneurship, and marketing in a Florida community praised for its own downtown rebirth-St. Petersburg. Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, will open the conference live via satellite. Two exceptional keynote speakers - John Howkins, author of The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas and Charles Landry, author of The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators - will enrich this meeting of international attendees with their perspectives on the creative movement in the United Kingdom. Their comments and case studies will set the stage for several breakout sessions covering such creative industry clusters as digital media, design and software, financing, incubators, redevelopment, marketing, economic development trends, and corporate creativity.
The venue for Creative Cities Summit 2004 is the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel in downtown St. Petersburg. For more additional details on the agenda, or to register online, visit the website www.creativecitiessummit.com.
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