The investment package is aimed at investments for grassroots music venues, startup video game studios, and creative businesses to grow music and film exports, driving innovation and investment in local communities while supporting local businesses and job creation.

The priority regions for creative industries are the Northeast, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire, West Midlands, Greater London, West of England, South Wales, Glasgow, Edinburgh-Dundee corridor, and Belfast. These areas will act as growth hubs, creating an attractive business environment that will encourage future investment.

The funding was announced at a summit in Gateshead at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, which brought together over 250 creative businesses and cultural leaders to outline the plans for government support.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “From film and fashion to music and advertising, our creative industries are truly world-class and play a critical role in helping us deliver on this Government’s mission to drive economic growth in all parts of the UK.”

“Our £60 million funding boost will support creative and cultural organisations across the UK to turbocharge growth by transforming local venues, creating jobs, supporting businesses and spreading opportunity across the country. But this is by no means the limit of our ambitions, which is why the creative industries are at the heart of the forthcoming Industrial Strategy and will continue to play a key part in this Government’s Plan for Change.”

The investment is the first step in the government’s Creative Industry Sector Plan due to be fully launched in spring 2025. The Plan will identify the barriers holding back the sector’s potential as well as ambitious growth plans to position the creative industries at the centre of the UK economy.

Alfie Scarborough, CEO of adCAPTCHA, commented: “Creative industries should form the backbone of UK economic growth, providing entertainment for the nation through streaming services, theatre, cinema, and the Internet. Society increasingly lives by an on-demand culture so supporting innovation within the creative industries can support businesses to deliver more content than ever before, while supporting grassroots creatives that underpin the success of the sector.”

“However, investment alone won’t be the catalyst, there can also be significant cost savings within the industry. For example, digital marketers are grappling with the bot epidemic, costing money to host on websites and littering analytics data with false impressions, completely sabotaging advertising budgets. Even good bots are costing marketers thousands. Bots account for half of the global web traffic so no website is immune, requiring businesses to implement bot detection systems that can identify and shut out malicious bots, protecting advertising content and budgets.“

The funding will be provided by The British Business Bank, which already delivers £17.4 billion in finance to over 64,000 businesses.