Generator are pleased to announce the launch of the third cohort of our Digital Scale Up Programme.

Is your business ready for the next phase but not quite sure of how to get there? Our Digital Scale Up Programme is designed for those businesses that are at a critical stage in their development, past the start-up phase and progressing toward becoming more established. We are looking for businesses who have already grown organically to a reasonable size and are ready to double that.

If this sounds like you then come along to our launch event where you will hear some first-hand scale up stories from speakers such as hedgehog lab’s CEO, Sarat Pediredla. After a decision to pivot the business in 2010, hedgehog lab have seen significant growth and international expansion, opening offices in London, India, the US and Denmark on top of their Newcastle headquarters. In 2016, they grew their revenues 160%. This year, they’re in line to double them.

Alison Freer, Director of Consulting & Learning at sales performance specialists, durhamlane, also joins the panel. Now in its seventh year, durhamlane is on its own scale-up journey, having grown delivered average revenue by over 50% in three successive years. Alison is a specialist in commercial leadership development, training and coaching and works with durhamlane’s scale-up clients in the software, digital and tech sectors, as well as larger corporate businesses.

Click Here to Register.

Paul Lancaster, founder of Newcastle Start-up Week will also be talking about his brand-new event Scale Up Summit in November. The event aims to help people learn how to grow and take their business to the next level.

Final speakers to be announced…

The event will be followed by networking where there will be an opportunity to talk to Generator and our delivery partners about how you can get involved in the Digital Scale Up programme.

Schedule

• Registration: 5.30 – 6.00pm
• Panel discussions: 6.00-7.30pm
• Networking: 7.30 – 8.30pm

Refreshments will be provided.

Click Here to Register.

‘Digital Futures’, Generator’s business support programme, is designed to meet the business development needs of the North East’s creative and digital businesses. This programme is part-funded by England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. Places at this event are FREE OF CHARGE for creative and digital businesses from North East England, thanks to ERDF funding.*

*County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear (excluding Tees Valley)

Venue: Blast Studios,The Old Glassworks Basement, Stepney Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2NP
Dates: 16th September
Time: 10.00am –  4.30pm

Calling all budding and established songwriters / producers / lyricists / topliners. Over the course of two Saturdays this double-header masterclass will give you a crash course in both creative approaches to your craft and also how to maximise the financial worth of your tunes.

This workshop is ideal for musicians looking to break into writing for artists, but will also have a wealth of information for solo artists and bands.

The morning will involve an in-depth look at the creative workflow of our guest songwriters which include Marty Longstaff with more to be announced. Marty is a signed songwriter to BMG and alongside his own artist project The Lake Poets he also co-writes for pop and country artist with collaborators in Berlin and Nashville.

Each songwriter will take you through their particular process and speak candidly about how they get the jobs in the first place.

For the afternoon session we are inviting 10 participants to a mini songwriting bootcamp. You will be put together into pairs with complementary skillsets and be given a number of live briefs from BMG and Universal to choose from and then write for. The guests from the morning session will act as mentors offering their words of wisdom as you get creative. There will be separate breakout spaces at Blast Studios for each duo and you are welcome to bring in whatever instruments and music tech required to complete the task. This is an amazing opportunity to work on the biggest songwriting jobs out there, get tips and tricks from established names as you go and also to make connections with fellow local songwriters.

To register for this FREE event go here.

Please note*

By registering for this event you are registering for the morning session. You can apply for the opportunity to take part in the afternoon songwriting project during the registration process. Please include a link to your music on the registration page if you want to take part. A Generator panel will choose the 10 musicians we feel best able to carry out the task and who are at the ideal time in their careers to benefit most. As numbers are expected to be high we can’t guarantee that everyone will be able to participate in the afternoon session but we will inform you prior to the event.

Places at this event are FREE OF CHARGE for creative and digital businesses from North East England, thanks to ERDF funding.*

*County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear

Money Money Money – Funding Your Creative or Digital Business

Are you looking for business finance to help you start or grow your creative business ? What alternatives are there available to start up or scale up in the north east and nationally ? This session will help you understand the access to finance process and how to identify the right option for your business. This workshop will cover in plain and simple language :-

• Grants
• Traditional Finance vs Alternative Finance
• Business Loans
• Crowdfunding
• Peer to Peer
• Equity & Investment

It will also look at the best methods of packaging up your finance requirements and how to present or ‘pitch’ this to funders so the request is clear and you improve your chances of success. This session will be brought to you by representatives from Teal and Transmit Start Ups who have years of experience of helping creative businesses demystify this process and access finance .

Teal is a friendly and convenient signposting service that helps you find the right finance for your startup or early stage business. They have used their knowledge and expertise to compile a database of business finance providers so you don’t have to get into a flap about it and recently produced ‘The Plain and Simple Guide to Small Business Finance’ which is available to download as an e-book.

Transmit Start-Ups provides finance, business support and mentoring for new businesses throughout the UK. It is made up of a team of experienced creative entrepreneurs who understand what is involved in starting and growing businesses. Transmit Start-Ups is an official delivery partner of the Start-Up Loans Company, a Government initiative and have approved finance for over 1800 start ups to date.

Please register here.

Please arrive by 9.15am for registration, the session will start at 9.30am prompt. Refreshments will be provided.

‘Digital Futures’, Generator’s business support programme, is designed to meet the business development needs of the North East’s creative and digital businesses. This programme is part-funded by England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. Places at this event are FREE OF CHARGE for creative and digital businesses from North East England, thanks to ERDF funding.*

*County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear (excluding Tees Valley)

For the morning session we are welcoming Jenny Jones from Ninja Tune (Cinematic Orchestra, Bonobo, Thundercat). Jenny works for their publishing arm Just Isn’t Music on sync – placing existing songs in film, tv and adverts. She will be revealing exactly how that happens, what money is involved, how the legal side works and also how you might be best prepared to get your songs synced.

You will also hear from an A&R representative from Universal Publishing (Coldplay, Adele, The XX). They will give a brief introduction before revealing more about a career as a writer / producer / lyricist / topliner and how you might attract a publisher partner. They will also talk about the role of publishing for a solo artist or band and what Universal looks for when signing songwriters.

The afternoon will be dedicated to in-depth and private one-to-ones with both Ninja Tune and Universal also at Loft Studios. This gives you the chance to speak directly to the industry specifically about YOUR songs and how to make deals happen, how to get into great writing sessions and how to get that money to flow! It is also a great opportunity to play some of your material to our experts and get some honest industry feedback. We envisage each meeting to be about 30mins in length.

Prior booking for the afternoon session is essential as demand will be high. Please fill out your details on the registration page, including a link to your music and also whether you want to speak to Ninja Tune or Universal. Presently we are capping this at one meeting for each participant, but on the day you might be able to speak to both pending turnout.

Please note*

By registering for this event you are registering for the morning session. You can apply for the opportunity for a one-to-one session with a representative from Ninja Tune or Universal during the registration process. As numbers are expected to be high we can’t guarantee that everyone will be able to participate in the afternoon session but we will inform you prior to the event.

Places at this event are FREE OF CHARGE for creative and digital businesses from North East England, thanks to ERDF funding.*

*County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear

With VR and AR developments being the hot topic of the moment, we’re happy to announce our next Thinking Digital Session will be dedicated to exploring what’s trending locally and nationally on this exciting subject. Join us on Tuesday 26 September at the fabulous Zerolight offices on Newcastle’s Quayside to hear updates and progress stories from Joseph Artgole of Zerolight, Phil Charnock of Liverpool’s Swapbots, as well as one further speaker to be announced.

In addition to this you’ll have the opportunity to take part in a Q&A session plus try out some cool demos kindly provided by Zerolight and Hedgehog Lab as well as one other AR/VR exhibitor to be announced.

The session will run as follows:

• 5.00 Registration and VR/AR Exhibits
• 6.00 Introductions
• 6.10 Keynotes
• 7.00 Intro to the Exhibitors
• 7.10 Discussion and audience Q&A
• 7.45 Networking and VR/AR Exhibits

Click here to register

Refreshments will be provided.

‘Digital Futures’, Generator’s business support programme, is designed to meet the business development needs of the North East’s creative and digital businesses. This programme is part-funded by England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. Places at this event are FREE OF CHARGE for creative and digital businesses from North East England, thanks to ERDF funding.*

*County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear (excluding Tees Valley)