“For a city like Salzburg, creativity is an important economic factor.”

Mayor of the City of Salzburg Bernhard Auinger

Creative City Lab_Salzburg brought artists, creatives and entrepreneurs together. With around 200 visitors over two days, the Creative City Lab_Salzburg in the House of Talents was a complete success. With this new format on November 6 and 7, the City of Salzburg created a lively platform for young creatives, graduates of Salzburg universities and colleges as well as entrepreneurs to exchange ideas, learn from each other and start new collaborations.

Workshops, talks and presentations showcased the broad spectrum of Salzburg’s creative industries – from graphics and design, media, music and performing arts to software and games.

Thank you for inviting me to give my presentation “The Sirens of Salzburg” to provide an insight into the interaction of living, working and creative industry development in other cities and the relevance of creative solution potential for future social, technological and ecological challenges.

The Creative City Lab_Salzburg showed how valuable encounters “at eye level” between art, culture and business are. “For a city like Salzburg, the creative industries are an important location factor alongside culture and tourism. It is crucial that artists and creative entrepreneurs have the opportunity to network and create new impulses together,” said Mayor Bernhard Auinger.

The event is based on an idea from the City of Salzburg’s cultural strategy, which aims to anchor art and creativity more firmly as a driving force for economic and social development. The Creative City Lab is part of an ongoing dialog between art, science and business that makes the value of young creatives visible and promotes the development of sustainable relationship networks.

The event implemented a core idea of the City of Salzburg’s cultural strategy: “The strategy pursues the goal of linking art, business and science more closely and strengthening creativity as a driver of development,” explains Dagmar Aigner, Head of the Department of Culture. “The start has been made, now we are taking the momentum with us for the next implementation projects in this field.”

The event was organized in cooperation with the Altstadtverband, which provided the location. The House of Talents provided the ideal setting: compact, open and atmospheric – a place where encounters, inspiration and exchange took center stage.