A programme to help creative businesses in Greater Manchester to scale up and grow could help firms in their recovery from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Creative Scale-Up programme was first launched in January - and its backers say the project is now even more important than ever.
Organisations that have already taken part include Engage Hub, the People's History Museum, Creative Tourist, Buffalo 7, Prospect Games and Beatstream Media.
The scheme was launched by the Growth Company and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and fully funded by DCMS.
It aims to help businesses in the sector "realise their full growth potential, providing the training and tools necessary to take creative businesses to the next level".
Sam Whitear, Creative Scale-Up Programme project manager, said: “The creative industries in Greater Manchester have thrived in recent years, but there is no doubt that COVID-19 has seen a lot of projects come to a halt and left these businesses facing all-new and unexpected challenges.
“We launched Creative Scale-Up in January as a programme to help enable businesses to strengthen and sharpen up their skills, review their strategies and benefit from peer-to-peer learning, and all of these are even more important right now.
“All businesses will be needing to focus on their current challenges, but also planning for the growth they are aiming for when the world of work has returned to normality again.
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“Creative Scale-Up adds further scale and depth to the services we are offering for the creative sector, including the relaunched Greater Connected programme, and crucially it supports Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s Build Back Better programme aimed at helping the region come back stronger after COVID-19.”
Another business to have taken part in the scheme recently is festivals and events acelerator Mustard Media.
Managing director Rob Masterson said: “It's been fantastic having a senior advisor available to update us individually and help us navigate the coronavirus crisis which has unfortunately had an adverse impact on the live music and festival industry.
“It's been great having the comprehensive training modules with a range of tools needed to scale up. The breadth of the modules and the fact they've been available as webinars has been really helpful to educate the team and has allowed us to be flexible with attending during an uncertain period.
“We're very much looking forward to applying the sales and marketing and IP knowledge to future innovation projects as we seek to steer the business at this time. We've had some very productive discussions with the department for international trade too, helping introduce us to new connections in the US. We hope to build upon these as we seek to expand the business once we get back into growth mode.”