Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis - Wollongong - QUT
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Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis Wollongong New South Wales
Australian Cultural and Creative Activity:
A Population and Hotspot Analysis
Wollongong
This report is an output of an Australian Research Council Linkage project (LP160101724) led by Queensland University of Technology in partnership with
the University of Newcastle, Arts Queensland, Create NSW, Creative Victoria, Arts South Australia and the WA Department of Culture and the Arts.The
reference for this report should read: McIntyre, Phillip., Susan Kerrigan, Marion McCutcheon, and Stuart Cunningham. 2020. Australian Cultural and Creative
Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis: Wollongong Brisbane. Digital Media Research Centre. Available https://research.qut.edu.au/creativehotspots/.
Strategic Summary
Wollongong is increasingly recognised as a great place to live, be educated, work and raise a
family. This is currently Wollongong’s major advantage.
• Creative industries workers are an essential part of Wollongong’s economy, which has
prospered because of proximity to Sydney and regional geography.
• Many of Wollongong’s creative workers develop skills in Sydney’s international metropolitan
hub while enjoying the culture and lifestyle opportunities of Wollongong and the broader
Illawarra region.
• Creative industries professionals have moved into the region seeking affordable housing and
family-friendly communities to raise children.
Wollongong has a diverse creative scene ranging from the alternative to the corporate. In 2016,
3,624 people earnt their primary income in the creative industries, an average increase of 2.4%
each year since 2011.
• Key growth areas for the creative services sub-sector of the creative industries are architecture
and design, advertising and marketing, web design, software app development and games.
• The cultural production sub-sector of the creative industries has a lively music scene, with an
active night-time economy, a supportive network of published writers, a well-patronised radio
network and a regional television news network headquarters.
• Wollongong’s night-time economy is supported by visual and performing arts events and
activities through galleries, theatres, libraries and museums.
• Wollongong’s local entrepreneurs have made their mark in the creative industries. Many were
raised and educated in the region, while others have moved in.
• Wollongong has maintained a balance between traditional creatives and newer tech-oriented
operatives, and most have local, national and international suppliers and clients.
Cultural production, primarily arts, heritage and culture, contributed $46.1 million to the region
in 2016-17, according to the Wollongong City Council Creative Wollongong 2019-2024 strategic
plan.
• The Council has been proactive in ensuring the heart of the city has been activated by cultural
production activities.
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
• Strategies to support creative industries have been created by the Council and other agencies,
to support the workforce, small to medium enterprises, and corporate players.
• Strategic support for the creative industries has been stimulated by local and state
government grants and, to a lesser extent, federal government grants.
The supply of relevant and necessary infrastructure, of all types, by federal, state and local
governments, keeps confidence high in these industries.
• Local government provides buildings with co-working, studio and gallery spaces to support
cultural production.
• The NSW Government supplies grants to stimulate activity within cultural production.
• The Federal Government is important to building critical infrastructure, particularly the
National Broadband Network, which is now crucial for all commerce.
All creative employment, whether it is specialist, support or embedded, is essential for the
creative industries ecosystem to thrive in the region.
• Creative industry workers are in small businesses and large national corporations, working as
embedded creatives (40%), specialist creatives (29%) and support workers (30%).
• Embedded creatives working in mining and health use the same software and skills as
specialist creatives working as freelancers or sub-contractors with small to medium enterprises
and national corporates.
• Support workers are essential, as they link the creative industries ecosystem, which is highly
interdependent and dynamic, to the rest of the economy.
• Amateurs are able to move to pro-am and professional status, indicating a creative industries
sector providing career development opportunities.
The creative industries, as a whole, have been able to support and take part in other forms of
critical entrepreneurial activity within the broader economy.
• Wollongong City Council has worked constructively with institutional enablers to put together
Invest Wollongong, a partnership between the Council, the NSW Government, the University
of Wollongong, and the Business Chamber.
• iAccelerate, a business incubator at the Innovation Campus, has activated innovative and
entrepreneurial start-up opportunities for all industries. It exemplifies how multiple channels
of funding and cooperation between state and local government, the tertiary sector and
business chamber, can benefit the region.
• Not-for-profit social enterprises offer embedded creatives entrepreneurial opportunities
within budding local businesses.
Recommendations
Continue to brand Wollongong and the Illawarra region as a highly liveable location for creatives.
Proximity to Sydney is an attractor for national and international creative businesses.
• Inform and educate all government instrumentalities about the breadth of Wollongong’s
creative industries.
• Recommend to all levels of government that a determination be made as to whether
Wollongong is ‘metropolitan’ or ‘regional’.
• Accelerate the ongoing diversification of the broader economy through the creative industries.
• Celebrate the cultural diversity in Wollongong and amplify this through the creative industries.
• Ensure digital infrastructure continues to be affordable and accessible to all creative industries
operatives as they trade locally, nationally and globally.
• Continue to streamline bureaucratic processes, particularly at Council level, for the creative
industries in toto.
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
Contents
Strategic Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................................... 4
Background and Context............................................................................................................................... 5
Strategic Theme 1: Interrelationships across the sub sectors of the creative industries ........................... 12
CREATIVE SERVICES ..................................................................................................................................... 13
CULTURAL PRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 14
Strategic theme 2: The relationship of cultural and creative activity to the wider economy .................... 18
Strategic theme 3: Hotspot Comparisons ................................................................................................... 24
References .................................................................................................................................................. 25
Appendices.................................................................................................................................................. 28
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
Acknowledgements
The research team gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following people and organisations for
providing the information and insights that made this report possible:
Nick Bolton, TEN ALPHAS
Jaymee Beveridge, UOW
Nicci Bedson, Painter and Art Gallery Assistant
Aaron Curnow, Spunk Records
Abhiruchi Chhikara, Project Contemporary Art Space Gallery
Sofia Gibson, Wollongong City Council
Chloe Higgins, Wollongong Writer’s Festival
Susan Haddon, Roocreate and Roolands
Simon Hinton, Merrigong Theatre Company
Jason Hinds, ENWARE
Adam Jordan, Main Street Studios
John Kerr, iAccelerate
Brianna Kennedy, Community Radio
Omar Khalifa, iAccelerate
Nina Kourea, photographer and community worker
Stella Lauri, WIN Wollongong
Molly Lasker, Writer
Ted Mitew, University of Wollongong
Chris Moore, University of Wollongong
Lilli Pang, The Story Line
Sandra Pires, Why Documentaries
Richard Piper, Pipers Wollongong Music Centre
Desiree Savage, Illawarra Mercury
Sue Savage, Wollongong City Council
Steen, Director Phoenix Theatre
Molly Stubbs, Graphic Designer
Ben Tillman, Yours and Owls Music Festival
Karl White, Team B
Alistair Webster, Print Maker and Musician
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
Background and Context
Located on the ancestral lands of the Dharawal people, a coastal tribe who were skilled hunter–fisher–
gatherers, Wollongong became a centre for heavy industry after Europeans arrived in the region. The city
of Wollongong sits at the centre of this region. It sits inside an elongated and strikingly beautiful locality,
contained to the east by the Pacific Ocean and to the west by the Great Dividing Range. With a large
saltwater lake at its southern extremes, the liveable land becomes narrower and more imposingly
beautiful the further north one goes. With its geographic proximity to the southern sprawl of Sydney,
ready access to digital communication tools and conveniently located transport infrastructure, primarily
rail and road and to a lesser extent air, and its long-term dynamic cultural diversity, Wollongong has been
an attractor for many inward bound creative migrants which has helped it diversify away from its
industrially reliant past. While Wollongong is the second-largest regional local government area in NSW in
2020 it still appears to be “in different parts, both underprivileged and luxurious, industrial and tranquil”
(Waite & Gibson 2008, p 1225). As heavy industry lessens and diversity of employment takes hold these
previously sharp distinctions have, nonetheless, become increasingly fuzzier. The northern suburbs of
Wollongong have increasingly been attracting migrants from Sydney, because of push factors such as
metropolitan cost of living pressures, increased housing costs and stressful internal commutes, and pull
factors such as the lifestyle, beaches and rainforests to be found in this region.
The southern part of the region, on the other hand, has transformed much more slowly following the
demise of heavy industry and steel manufacturing, with heavy job losses occurring over the last three
decades. The gentrification of Port Kembla in the southern part of the region had already begun as those
escaping Sydney migrated into the northern suburbs of Wollongong, and these have pushed the ‘locals’
out who themselves are beginning to move south to sites such as Port Kembla in turn impinging on those
‘locals’’ situation. These real estate manoeuvrers affect Creative Industry activities particularly the
Cultural Production sectors of the Visual and Performing Arts. This sector has perennially sought and
benefited from cheap rents and large unused commercial or light industrial spaces.
As Waitt and Gibson definitively concluded in 2008 “those parts of Wollongong’s linear string of
settlements closest to Sydney are picturesque - small hamlets nestled between dramatic rainforest
escarpment, national parks and popular surf beaches - and these have grown organically as hubs of
creative activities without the need for place branding or creative industry development schemes” (2008,
p 1225). Filmmaker Sandra Pires asserts, “everyone is going to tell you the same thing, it's beautiful. You
know you've got the sea and you've got the escarpment, it's a good place for kids, it's not as busy and you
know it's a little less stressful than Sydney” (Pires iv 13 April 2019). Wollongong has also attracted
international CI workers. For example, Suzanne Haddon, a globally focused and multi-faceted design
professional and educator asserted that “I didn't want to live in a big city, so I chose Wollongong because
of the surf and because of the UOW being so close’ (Haddon iv April 15, 2019).
Population
Wollongong’s population is currently over 216,000 and its average age is approximately 38. A younger
demographic is centred on the north of the region and an older one centred on the south around Port
Kembla (ABS 2020). Historically the northern suburbs of Wollongong were initially settled by coal miners
but today the population of the northern suburbs of Wollongong are middle class which is a direct result
of the relationship with Sydney’s metropolitan area and possibly the largest employers now being Health
Care, Social Work and Education whose employees often choose to live in the more picturesque
beachside northern suburbs. The southern suburbs were historically much more industrially and working
class focused. Over a number of decades the south of the region attracted multiple populations of British,
Irish, Italian, Greek, Macedonian, Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish Russians, Bosnians, Croatians, Serbs,
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
Germans Turks, Brazilians and Chileans. Populations of Japanese, Indians, Filipinos, Malaysians, Koreans,
Singaporeans and Pacific Islanders all arrived after the end of the White Australia Policy. Most of these
communities came to the region to work in the BHP steel manufacturing works located in the southern
suburbs and consequently lived close to their workplaces. The Illawarra population has also been swelled
by later internal migrations. What Waite and Gibson had identified in 2008 as a “sustained in-migration of
certain kinds of creative workers seeking more affordable housing and a lifestyle change…heightened
because of the spatial configuration of Wollongong” (2008, p. 1225) appears to still hold true in 2019.
Table 1 Demographic profile by place of residence, Wollongong local government area compared with
greater Sydney and regional NSW, 2016
Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)
The population in the Wollongong LGA is spread relatively evenly across all age groups in comparison to
the State capital and regional NSW more broadly and the gender mix is roughly equivalent to the rest of
the state. The tertiary educated, as a proportion of the total population, is comparatively high against the
rest of the state but lower than the metropolitan centre, indicating a strong presence of middle class
professionals in the region. However, while the unemployment rate overall is higher than the State
average, youth unemployment averages, typical of a post-industrial economy, are higher yet again. It is
also a feature of the Illawarra that the Indigenous presence in the region is very much in the minority
being almost half that of the State average.
Economy
Although Wollongong’s reputation is still that of a mining and manufacturing centre, only manufacturing
now maintains a place in the current top five employing industries in Wollongong. The remainder in that
top five are service-based. Particularly note-worthy is the position of the education and training industry
in Wollongong. It provides the second-largest source of employment with Wollongong home to a highly-
ranked regional university and a TAFE institute. For these top five industry sectors the percentage of jobs
they offer and the value add they bring to the region is as per the following list:
• Health care and social assistance – 17.6 per cent of jobs / 11.6 per cent of value add
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
• Education and training – 12.3 per cent of jobs / 10.4 per cent of value add
• Retail trade – 10.1 per cent of jobs / 5.6 per cent of value add
• Accommodation and food services – 8.5 per cent of jobs / 3.8 per cent of value add
• Manufacturing – 7.3 per cent of jobs / 6.4 per cent of value add
Figure 1 Economic activity by ANZSIC subdivision, Wollongong local government area
It is notable that the Arts and Recreation Services and the Information Media and Telecommunications
sectors, seen as here indicative in some broad ways of the creative industries, contributed 2.0% of all
those employed full time in the region in 2016. Value add for these sectors also stood at 3.2% of the total
value add for all businesses in the region at this time. Interestingly, the total ABN registered businesses,
thus those businesses presumably turning over greater than $75,000 per annum, saw these same two
sectors contributing 5.4% of the total ABN registrations. One could surmise, then, that these sectors
turned over at least an estimated $158.2 million for the 2016 reporting period. In total the region seems
to be doing well with a growth in all key economic indicators. From 2011 to 2016 the regional population
grew by 1.2%, the Gross Regional Product (GRP) grew by 2.0% almost equivalent with the rest of the
state, and the number of operating businesses in the region grew much faster at 2.3% then the rest of
NSW which grew at 1.9%.
Table 2 Economic indicator summary, Wollongong local government area, 2016
Population Gross regional product Total Total
($m, 2017-18 dollars) employed businesses
Measure 203,630 11,012 88,250 44,336
Avg annual growth, 1.1% 2.0% 1.3% 2.3%
2011 to 2016
% of state 2.7% 2.1% 2.6% 1.9%
Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018a), Australian Bureau of
Statistics (2018b), .id (2019 ).
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
Creative Economy
Wollongong’s cultural and creative economy has been the subject of some study by the cultural
geography team at the University of Wollongong (e.g Waitt and Gibson 2008). It was reported that “the
City of Wollongong was one of the first Australian municipal authorities to embrace culture, establishing a
creative cities agenda and the aspiration to become the City of Innovation” (ibid, p. 1224). This was well
before the ‘creative cities’ phenomenon had become passé. Again in 2008, Wollongong was reported to
be still hostage to its industrial working-class past which was still shaping city politics and local industry
development priorities. At this point Wollongong’s inner city had “not been emptied of its working-class
community or heavy industries” (ibid, p. 1225). While these communities have not lost their presence in
the city as of 2019 the inner-city now appears to be highly activated in terms of café culture, music and
public arts.
Wollongong was also one of three NSW regions included in the ARC Linkage project Cultural Asset
Mapping in Regional Australia (2008-2013), which involved 13 partner organisations and four universities
(CAMRA, 2013). As the first Australian city to design a cultural plan to support economic development
goals, Wollongong provided an ideal case study to demonstrate how the characteristics of a small city’s
creative economy was a function of its size, geographical position and cultural legacy with project foci
including:
• Mapping of ‘cool’ and ‘creative’ Wollongong by attendees at the 2009 Viva la Gong festival
demonstrated that what are perceived as creative places are often not always the same as cool
places. The maps can be accessed here:
https://utsepress.lib.uts.edu.au/site/books/10.5130/978-1-86365-433-3/
• Three case studies of non-traditional cultural and creative practice, custom car design, surfboard
shaping and indigenous hip hop. These case studies are summarised here:
https://utsepress.lib.uts.edu.au/site/books/10.5130/978-1-86365-433-3/
Table 3 Employed persons in creative and other industries by creative occupation type, 2016,
Wollongong LGA
Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)
A snapshot of Australian Census data for Wollongong in 2016 identifies 3,624 people who earnt a primary
income in the creative industries sector, with a creative employment intensity of 4.6% and an overall
growth of 2.4%. In particular, the Creative Services (CS) sub-sector of the creative industries, that is
Architecture & d Design, Adversting & Marketing as well as Digital which includes web design app
development and games, are a key growth area. For example, there has been a significant shift found in
the number of workers employed in Advertising and Marketing (growth of 0.9%) and Software and Digital
Content (growth of 0.5%). For the Cultural Production sub-sector (CP) there is a lively music scene with an
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020
active night time economy, a supportive network of writers, a well-patronised set of networked radio and
TV outlets and support for theatre, libraries and museums.
Figure 2 Creative services employment by SA2 region
Employment counts As a proportion of total employment
Source: ABS Census data 2016.
Figure 3 Cultural production employment by SA2 region
Employment counts As a proportion of total employment
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020Source: ABS Census data 2016.
For both CS and CP professionals, while jobs are concentrated in the CBD, as a proportion of total
employment, creative professionals are concentrated in the Northern Illawarra, reflecting the lifestyle
choices and socioeconomic divide between the north and south. Comparing change in Creative Industry
employment, total earnings and mean income and business registrations reveals relatively high increases
in the numbers of very small businesses (those with no GST registration and therefore with a turnover of
less than $75,000) active in Wollongong compared with larger businesses (those registered for GST).
For Advertising & Marketing, Architecture & Design and Visual & Performing Arts, the steep comet
trajectory shows growth in ABN registrations with no associated GST registration is greater than
employment growth. This means that people in these industries are increasingly more likely to be self-
employed than employed by a larger GST-paying business. However, the shift to self-employment is no
guarantee of a higher income for all creative sectors – mean income for people in the Visual & Performing
Arts industry increased, while for the Advertising & Marketing sector it fell. And for Architecture & Design,
while ABN registrations with no associated GST registration increased, people are earning no more than in
2011. Growth in the numbers of larger GST-paying businesses is subdued in all creative industry sectors.
The charts highlight how employment and total earnings in Publishing have both fallen – but mean
incomes have increased, reflecting the organisational change underway in the newspaper industry in
particular. It is of note that those working in Visual and Performing Arts sector are more likely to be
earning incomes through a very small business (see green comets at the top of Figure 4) than, for
example, Architecture and Design which is also a highly divergent category with a proportionate number
of non-GST registered businesses. The maturity of this CP sub-sector of the CI appears to have been
sustained and stimulated by the Wollongong City Council’s pro-active and long-term strategic plans as
well as State and Federal level funding.
Figure 4 Creative industry employment, total earnings and mean income by place of work compared with
business registrations, 2011 and 2016, Wollongong local government area
Note: Comparing employed persons and ABNs with no associated GST registration, a comet line moving at a steep
angle above 45 degrees indicates that the increase in small business registrations is greater than growth in
employment. Note that the Census data cannot be split by business type – it includes employment in both large
business and small businesses not registered for GST but it is worth noting that all businesses, sole traders or
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020companies, whose turnover is greater than $75,000 per year must register for GST. Sources: Australian Bureau of
Statistics (2016), Australian Business Register (2019)
Government Policy Context
The Creative Wollongong 2019-2024 (Wollongong City Council, 2018) strategic plan builds on the
Council’s previous plans, aiming “to grow creative industries, support community participation in creative
life and celebrate our unique places and spaces” (Wollongong City Council, 2018, p. 4 ). The plan indicates
that the heritage, creative and performing arts sector is significant for the city producing $46.1 million in
total sales income for 2016-17. While the reconstitution of the northern suburbs through diverse creative
activity took place largely through “a combination of market forces, speculative real estate investment,
locally manifest cultural proclivities, proximity to Sydney, traditionalism and small settlements within an
attractive natural environment” (Waitt & Gibson 2008, p. 1236), the Manager of Community Cultural and
Economic Development for the Wollongong City Council, Sue Savage, believes that the Council is “very
committed to the [2019-2024 strategic] plan [and] when we did our strategic plan, one of the goals was
that we were a creative and vibrant city, and that came directly from our community. So that creative
element is very important to the city and to our councillors” (Savage iv 16 April, 2019). While Wollongong
City Council has historically been committed to supporting and celebrating arts, heritage and culture
(Wollongong City Council, 2018a, 2018b) Savage notes that today’s commitment to ‘culture and creativity’
began about 15 years ago (Savage iv 16 April, 2019) and in recent years the council “has been working
with key partners to position Wollongong as a vibrant and creative events city” (Ars Electronica, 2019). In
adopting the ‘six principles set out by the Cultural Development Network Victoria’ (Wollongong City
Council, 2018, p. 12) the Council set out to create a strategic plan that is focused on an evidence base
with planning that is hoped to empower current cultural arts workers through councils assets to deliver
outcomes focused on those planning approaches. The Council’s cultural plans have been one of the key
elements in supporting the region’s cultural development and have been cited as one of a number of
reasons why Wollongong’s music scene has thrived over the last ten years in line with the opening of the
CBD as an entertainment precinct (Leeson, 2018). The City Council also works closely with Destination
Wollongong to bring events to the city and part of this process has been to pragmatically implement a
cutting-edge pre-approval process for city event sites.
Figure 5 Federal, state and local government arts grants by year, including in kind
Total value of grants expended Distribution of grants
Note: Figures reported by financial year are allocated here to the calendar year in which the financial period ends.
Sources: Create NSW 2019, Australia Council (2019), Wollongong City Council Annual Reports
Wollongong City Council, however, does not have a regularly sustained arts and culture funding program.
Between 2016 and 2018, it did run a cultural grants program which provided local practitioners with
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020‘small’ grants averaging $2500 and ‘large’ grants averaging $8500 (Figure 5). According to Sue Savage,
interest in the program was highly variable with practitioners potentially not understanding the intent of
the program. The Council then needed to heavily promote the scheme in order to attract a competitive
field of grant applicants. Comparing the size of the grants being offered by the Council with funds being
sourced by local practitioners through state and federal government sources, the lack of engagement
with the Council’s program is perhaps not surprising.
At the State level, project funding support for the creative industries, specifically the Cultural Production
sector (excluding filmmaking, screen production, mainstream animation or film festivals which is funded
via Screen NSW), has been forthcoming from 2014 to 2018 at almost triple the investment in grant
funding coming through the local council. It is noteworthy that there was a significant peak of successful
grant applications approved for the Wollongong region in 2018. It is also of note that the State also
intends to provide Local Councils with further opportunities for funds to deliver cultural activities over a
period of up to three years, a program which “will commence from 2020/21 and will support the arts and
cultural outcomes of an annual program of activity by a facility or unit of Local Government” (Create NSW
2020).
From the graph above it can be seen that Create NSW’s funding for the Wollongong region in terms of
direct grants has been consistently a third greater, at least, than that coming directly from the Federal
arena via the Arts Council. For the Arts Council there are a range of programs designed to support “a
diverse range of artists, artistic practice, organisations and arts activity” (Arts Council 2020). These include
grants to help artists to develop their skills or improve their capacity to build enduring careers. From a low
base in 2014 these programs have delivered approximately $190,000 per year to the Wollongong region.
Strategic Theme 1: Interrelationships across the sub sectors of the
creative industries
In a region with a relatively stable economy and moderate unemployment, the overall Creative Industries
(CI) are statistically an area of strong growth in this region. Based on ABS Census data, employment in the
total creative industries grew by an average of 2.4 per cent per annum between 2011 and 2016, with the
average annual income for fully employed CI workers in 2016 being $61,700. The strongest growth
occurring for creative specialists sits at 3.1 per cent across the total creative industries.
The Creative Industries are comprised of two major subsectors (Higgs & Lennon 2014). These are the
Cultural Production (CP) and Creative Services (CS) subsectors. The Cultural Production subsector includes
visual and performing arts, music, film TV and radio as well as publishing, while the Creative Services
subsector includes architecture and design, advertising and marketing as well as electronic games and
digital software. It is notable that employment in the Creative Services sub-sector is growing more rapidly
than the Cultural Production sub-sector across both industry and occupation groups.
However, it appears that the relationship across these two primary subsectors, Cultural Production and
Creative Services, is more complex than this simple bifurcated typology indicates. As the ethnographic
component of the research – observation, in-depth interviews and artefact analysis (websites, pamphlets,
notices etc) - has indicated, the dynamic interdependence of subsectors occurs not only at the B2B level
but can most often be found at the level of individual careers where creative industries operatives gain
incomes increasingly across and within each subsector primarily gathering multiple part time incomes.
These come from across the increasingly casualised ecosystems that form both the CP and CS, or through
the portfolio careers that see many operatives increasingly moving between the two subsectors. It is also
a feature of the current manifestation of the creative industries that there are forms of CP necessarily
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020embedded within CS and CS elements utilised by those seeking to make a living and a profit from various
forms of CP.
CREATIVE SERVICES
In terms of the Creative Services subsector, Wollongong’s largest source of creative industries
employment is statistically within the software and digital content area. This area accounts for the largest
numbers of jobs by both industry and occupation. Not only is it the largest employer of sector specialists,
it also employs more support staff than any other creative industry sector. This is not surprising given
software and digital content specialists are in demand across the economy and in 2016 were slightly more
likely to be employed (embedded) in other industries than in creative industries sector-specialist firms.
Demand is so high, for example, for IT networking specialists in the region that employers are taking on
Wollongong TAFE students before they finish their diplomas (Huntsdale, 2019). Geographically, people
working in software and digital content occupations are located largely in and near the Wollongong CBD
and at the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus. There appear to be many small businesses of
this type in the region, with desk research identifying firms delivering software solutions for small-to-
medium business, developing digital content including web sites, games and apps which are part and
parcel of the electronic games and digital software sector of the creative industries.
The architecture and design industry is the second-largest creative industry sector in Wollongong in terms
of employment, however, it typically employs more people in support roles than it does specialists.
Overall, for every specialist in a creative firm there are 1.5 support workers (2016 Census). Not only does
architecture increasingly rely on the digital skills and support of web-designers, photographers, audio-
visual and 3D immersive content makers working across both CS and CP, it also relies on the digital
infrastructure supplied by Federal government to shunt CAD and other files around its networks and
increasingly promote its activities on line. Its website builds, for example, are often outsourced to a
variety of agencies and freelancers from other sectors of the creative industries. Notably, this sector
employs more people in software and digital content roles than any other creative industry except
software and digital content itself. Design studios, often with activities that blur the lines across a number
of creative industries sectors, are also a growing area of the creative industries in the region.
One of the other largest sources of CS employment in Wollongong is in advertising and marketing. The
digital age has transformed these two sectors where it would be hard to say they work completely within
creative services or cultural production. Both of these sectors usually now refer to ‘agencies’ and no
longer to the specifics of an ‘advertising agency’ or ‘design agency’ indicating an expanding list of creative
services on offer. They are just as likely to include branding and strategy, design, web and app-
development, media buying, as well as writing copy, the screen based production of television and radio
commercials, building social media and making corporate videos, often employing, for example, film
makers to produce corporate videos and ads, theatre people as actors or voice-over artists,
photographers to shoot for websites and so on, all of which are occupations and services typically
associated with the CP subsector. While this cross-sectoral work can be undertaken by sole traders or
freelancers, the high-quality work is generally done by SME’s employing between 10 and 20 full-time
employees or taking on freelancers on a brief-by-brief basis. These agencies in Wollongong have local and
regional client bases and they themselves are also usually hired on a project-by-project basis.
Embeddeds are also important to this sector. Mining the Census and ABR data at SA2 level, it can be seen
that there are clusters of advertising and marketing professionals located in, for example, higher and
vocational education services (the University of Wollongong and TAFE), in banking and financial services
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020(the Illawarra Credit Union), emergency services (the SES), accommodation services, management
consultancies and in market research and statistical services firms as well as elsewhere.
CULTURAL PRODUCTION
In terms of the Cultural Production subsector, which is formally constituted by visual and performing arts,
music, film TV and radio and publishing, it is the case that statistically music and performing arts, both of
which constitute a large proportion of the night-time economy, and film, TV and radio are the largest
employers within this subsector. However, the visual and performing arts are often perceived as the most
obviously ‘creative’ of the groups located within this subsector so much so that, at times, this area is
uncritically seen as the default for the entire creative industries itself. The visual arts, nonetheless, have
had a continuing presence in the Illawarra. In the midst of a downturn following the demise of
manufacturing in the Illawarra, and more recently the GFC which impacted the higher end visual arts in
unexpected ways as buyers who had lost their discretionary purchasing power ceased to buy art, Port
Kembla has developed as what is seen to be a ‘creative’, or more accurately, an artistic community
dependent as always on affordable accommodation. As Sydney’s property price pressures extend further
and further south down the Illawarra coast, the Port Kembla area is developing as a hotspot for non-
mainstream visual and performing artists. The number of people in this suburb claiming the visual and
performing arts as their main source of income increased from 52 to 80 between the census years of 2011
and 2016 – and has likely increased further since, as indicated by interviewees who have moved into the
area since the last Census (eg. Nina Kourea).
Performing artists and institutions have a rich and multi-faceted history, with a presence through the
supply chain. While Port Kembla has provided a refuge of sorts for an active group of visual and
performing artists who see themselves operating outside the mainstream arts community, the
Wollongong CBD has also been activated by public art and arts infrastructure. For example, the
Wollongong Art Gallery is home to the Illawarra Arts Society and its collection includes approximately
3000 artworks. It presents exhibitions that profile local and regional artists and community groups
(Wollongong Art Gallery, 2018). The Gallery is a key piece of council infrastructure and it is valued by the
wider community. Further, in the Councils strategic plan, Creative Wollongong 2019-2024, it was noted
that ‘85% agreed that arts, heritage and culture are important aspects of community life’ (Wollongong
City Council, 2018, p. 9). In 2016 the Council released ‘The Cultural Development Co-ordinator for
Wollongong City Council, Sofia Gibson, explained how the A City for People - Wollongong Public Spaces
Public Life 2016’ plan was focused at creating a liveable city with an emphasis on close management of
the City Centre ‘both operationally and through events and business relationships; but also to coordinate
the delivery of our public spaces; public life implementation plan’ (Gibson iv 16 April, 2019). The ‘Made in
Wollongong’ project also falls under Gibson’s remit (Wollongong City Council, 2018, p. 30). While
Wollongong City Council is responsible for the strategic direction of sustainable arts and cultural activities
and is often referred to as being regional, it is of practical concern that Wollongong and the Illawarra do
not currently qualify for funding through the Regional Arts NSW program since ‘regional’ is defined as ‘all
of NSW outside the greater Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong conurbation’ (FAQ's Regional ArtsNSW,
2019). Other visual arts related activity has, of course, been going on and every one of the arts
institutions, festivals, galleries and museums operating in the region, all of whom at certain times
contribute various activities to the night-time economy, have come to rely on web designers, both
professionals and pro-amateurs, to promote, advertise and market their activities.
Theatre, in particular, has a dynamic set of activities centred in Wollongong. All theatre companies in
this region have become increasingly reliant on websites as sources of information for audiences and as
repositories and promotional vehicles for their activities. Some sites are built in-house using platforms
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020such as Wordpress while others are custom built by web designers or, less typically for this sector, an
agency. PR, advertising and ongoing marketing - activities typically associated with the creative services
sector - sit at the heart of promoting this form of cultural production. As most of this sector’s
performances take place as part of the night-time economy, promotion is crucial to it and all of this
interaction demonstrates the interdependence of the creative services and cultural production sectors.
For example, Viva la Gong, which launched in 2000 as an annual festival run by Wollongong City Council, is
an award-winning, waste-wise arts and community festival offering a diverse range of performing arts
activities and the Wollongong City Council uses its own website to promote this event using both audio-
visual and text based content - someone was employed to photograph this event, someone was
employed to shoot video and someone was employed to write the text. This Council website also
promotes, through its Art and Culture section, aboriginal culture and heritage, libraries, the Wollongong
Art Gallery, the location of public art and other creative spaces as well as the Made in Wollongong
project, the museums and arts precincts crucial to cultural production in the region and various
opportunities for artists and performers. The Council also underwrites the highly successful Merrigong
Theatre Company. As the Director of Merrigong and IPAC? Simon Hinton asserts, Merrigong Theatre
Company is “the largest regional performing arts organization in Australia, outside of any of the state
capitals. Our turnover last year was $6.7 million…Our industry is about finding the resources” (Hinton, iv
16 April, 2019). Hinton explains that “all of the infrastructure is funded by Council […] we do operational
maintenance” (Hinton, iv 16 April, 2019). Further, the company structure is unique in that “our company
has one member and the member is Wollongong City Council. So, we're kind of at arms length, we have
our own board, we’re financially and legally separate from council, but we are essentially a controlled
entity of Council” (Hinton, iv 16 April, 2019). Hinton is convinced that “you couldn't operate facilities like
this without significant subsidy because the commercial rate you'd have to hire venues to people would
be unviable” (Hinton, iv 16 April, 2019).
This close relationship between theatre, as a form of cultural production central to the city’s night-time
economy, and the Council, has for some, come at a cost. Steen, the Director of the Phoenix Theatre
Company, highlighted how IPAC/Merrigong has come to dominate the Wollongong theatre scene since it
opened in 1988: the 25 theatre companies that once flourished in the region are now reduced to around
half a dozen community theatre companies and fewer theatres. According to Steen, works by local and
emerging playwrights are being replaced in local community theatres by highly popular franchise theatre
programs, which is often a poor strategy for regional theatre as these shows are expensive since profit
margins after royalties are generally lower with local plays. Steen argues that what he calls Disney-fication
has a tendency to shrink audiences since audiences appear to be less willing to go out and see new shows
than ever before.
The music sector is thriving in terms of its contribution to the night-time economy of the creative
industries in Wollongong and its interrelationship to other sectors of the creative industries. However, it
does need to be pointed out that the music industry has three arms - the recording sector, the live
performance sector, and the publishing sector. The first two are represented well in the Wollongong
region. These areas are seen as being mature with a number of significant players. These include not only
musicians, performers and songwriters, but also recording studios, record companies, venue owners,
promoters, agents and music retailers. This aspect of the industry is highly interconnected and, at times,
has been supported by local government activity. These sectors not only operate locally but have deep
connections to the national and international scenes and the local Council has recently seen the benefits a
healthy music scene can bring to the city.
A lot of the activity in the Wollongong music scene has not just been structural but has also been due to
the actions of a set of significant and active local entrepreneurs, some born and bred in the region and
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020some moving out of Sydney to take advantage of the proximity to Sydney and the lifestyle the region
offers. Crucial to this scene are people like Aaron Curnow from Spunk Records, located in the northern
Illawarra, Adam Jordan, the record producer who owns and runs Main Street Recording Studio, Rich Piper
who owns and runs Pipers Music, and, significantly, Ben Tillman who, along with his partner Jeb Taylor, is
responsible for the Yours and Owls Festival. Tillman also books venues like the Rad Bar and the North
Gong Hotel and other venues in adjacent regions, runs a record label and employs or contracts a wide
variety of operatives from designers, PR and marketing people through to PA Hire companies, lighting
crews, catering and security firms, who are the workers who provide the backbone of this part of the
night-time economy, as well as signing local artists to his record label. Digital connections are highly
important for CI operatives like Ben Tillman whose audiences for the performers he supports are localised
into two major areas in the region. As Tillman states “we split it into northern suburbs, which is this area,
Stanwell Park to Thirroul [and then] you've got the CBD. It’s like for everything south, the stuff happens in
Wollongong. There's no venues anywhere else. All those people will either go into northern suburb
shows, or they'll go to the CBD” (Tillman iv 2019).
While regional musical centres like Newcastle have had their night-time economies dealt a significant
blow with the implementation of lock-out laws and one-strike noise pollution regulations, Wollongong
appears to have moved in the opposite direction. Tillman asserts that after meeting extensive resistance
during his small Rad Bar start-up phase, the Council realised “‘oh, that's actually a positive thing’. And
then within two or three years there was something like 50 small bars in town” (Tillman iv 2019). It is of
note that the Live Music Action plan the City Council adopted in 2014-2018 may have been a leading
enabler for these active agents, specifically in terms of standing event Development Applications in NSW.
While many conflate the music industry solely with the popular music industry, and then conflate that
down to the independent or alternative music scene, for a city like Wollongong the music industry is, in
fact, supported by all types of music scenes and all types of musicians from the alternate to the
commercial. This includes folk, jazz, classical and country musicians and their many supporters. With a
busy set of music scenes like this there are also a number of luthiers and instrument makers and repairers
supported by this activity. While retail outlet, Piper’s Wollongong Music, carries a wide range of musical
instruments and goods sourced from all over the world in store, indicating a very busy and dynamic scene
in the region, they also operate digitally, maintaining a web designer implemented site which is actively
populated with images of instruments, text written instore and extensive video content shot and supplied
primarily by their manufacturers and suppliers. Social media is unavoidably central to their advertising
and promotion.
Wollongong is an important regional hub for television and radio broadcasting services, with an
emerging independent screen sector. For the Film, TV and Radio sector, in particular the screen sub-
sector of this, WIN Television is a significant employer in terms of broadcast and news production and this
network is deeply connected to other arms of the creative industries. Headquartered in Wollongong, WIN
Television is Australia’s largest privately-owned regional television network and it reaches more than 5.2
million viewers and produces and broadcasts an average of 150 news updates across the nation each day.
Its local bulletins are broadcast to four states and the ACT every weeknight. The WIN network creates a
half hour of regionals news from each of the 16 newsrooms it owns and that content has to compete with
news streamed from other network hubs. Stella Lauri, currently the Network News Director for WIN, has
25 years journalistic experience in metropolitan and regional news services. She states that “the
network’s presentation studios are in Wollongong and Wollongong is a major operational news hub. So
the presenters are recording the intros to those bulletins, but the actual stories are gathered individually
across the states” (Lauri IV 15 April 2019). Importantly in terms of cross sectoral interrelationships, she
goes on to say that “we also have production facilities here in Wollongong. We have operational and
news facilities, sales, traffic, administration, IT and engineering departments. Everything that has to do
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020with broadcast television” (Lauri IV 15 April 2019). WIN also uses, and profits from, in the form of
advertising, all of the sectors of the creative industries in the region.
As well as supporting many of these players and profiting from many of the businesses located in both the
cultural production and creative services sectors of the creative industries, WIN’s operations benefited
from the change in the media ownership laws that occurred at the Federal level during Malcolm
Turnbull’s period in government. These Federal Government changes enabled WIN to invest further in
their production infrastructure. It’s worth noting that the location of this successful player in this creative
industries sector in the heart of Wollongong is one of the reasons why employment in the Film, TV and
Radio sector sits at 5.3% and also one of the reasons that cross sectoral interrelationships are so readily
identifiable in this region. But WIN is only the most prominent of a set of companies operating in the
screen sector in the Illawarra. Other screen professionals located in Wollongong run established
corporate screen production houses. These include TEN ALPHAS and Why Documentaries.
The ability to work within and outside the region sustains the careers of many other local film
professionals living in the area but many of these exist “outside of the broadcasting model” (Pires iv 13
April 2019) and, since they are not usually art house filmmakers, are also therefore not generally eligible
to apply for state or federal screen funding. The establishment of Screen Illawarra was an attempt on the
part of the regional screen industry to solidify the interrelationships that are necessary to sustain the
professional screen industries in the region. Trying to unite and promote the regional screen industries,
including representing operatives in the adjacent areas of Kiama, Shellharbour and the Southern
Highlands, Screen Illawarra was established in 2017 by local screen professionals as a sustainable not-for-
profit representative body of the region’s screen production industry.
Wollongong regional radio contributes to a whole series of interrelationships both within creative
industries itself and beyond into the wider economy. It is a very mature sector. It is represented
by a highly active set of commercial, public and community broadcasters. The Grant Broadcasters
network is dominant commercially in the region and also nationwide, region to region. In terms of
public broadcasters all ABC networks are represented in the Illawarra either via broadcast or
narrowcast digitally through the ABC Listen app. For the community sector there is VOXFM 106.9
FM and Pulse94.1 a religiously focused community radio station. VOX 106.9 FM’s website, which is
alive with curated text and audio-visual material, indicates this community station “gives local
talent the opportunity to be heard and it also caters for many of the various ethnic communities
that call the Illawarra home” (VOX FM 2019).
Podcasting, a newer audio medium which draws heavily on the storytelling skills typical of radio in its
golden age in the 1930s, is increasingly a feature of the cultural production sector in Wollongong but it
also could be classified as part of the software and digital content area of the creative services sector.
Podular Media, located at iAccelerate on the Innovation Campus just to the north of Wollongong’s
CBD, is a good example of cross-sectoral interrelationships. This podcasting company marries radio,
television and software applications and delivers 10 different podcast titles via their website. These
podcasts are then networked through Acast, a podcast hosting service that also provides a PR,
marketing and sales team and helps companies like Podular Media to monetize their podcasts through
sponsorship, branded content and advertising. Podular Media also uses additional services from Acast
including their cross promotional opportunities but the incorporation of sound FX, recorded music and
narration by voice-over artists are core to all forms of podcasting. Podular Media’s Production
Manager, Rod Crawford, sources these from a variety of places.
Digital interconnectivity is transforming and disrupting creative businesses such as publishing.
Interconnections between publishing and the advertising and design sector, particularly for the media
related arm of publishing, are also a feature of not only this region but the creative industries
Wollongong Final Report 17 July 2020worldwide. As a subsector of the Cultural Production arm of the creative industries publishing, is a well
serviced, if now beleaguered sector in the Illawarra. Employment in the publishing industry fell by an
average of 13.8 per cent per annum and employment in publishing occupations by 2.8 per cent
between the Census years of 2011 and 2016. This drop reflects the impact of digital disruption
primarily on newspaper businesses who have traditionally relied on classifieds and other forms of
advertising to support their journalism. Many of these writers and their support personnel have had to
retrain or relocate and often both.
With the advent of the digital world small owner-operated largely online publishing businesses have
emerged, employing writers, often former print journalists, and advertising and sales staff on a casual
basis as well as outsourcing work to various photographers and graphic designers. These publications are
generally distributed electronically through platforms like Issuu, a digital magazine online hosting service,
as well as being hard copy published for where they are most relevant, especially in relation to local
tourism and the many seaside communities in the Wollongong region.
Surprisingly, given the massive digital competition from Amazon, The Book Depository and a number of
other large multinational online stores which have penetrated local and regional markets like Wollongong
via the internet, all of which has been increasingly enabled by Federally funded infrastructure such as the
NBN, new bookshops have recently opened in some of the smaller communities in the region. Thirroul
and Helensburgh, in particular, have supported local book proprietors who believe there is a need for
their services and literary products. These book stores both depend on and help promote local writers’
work and what appears to be a proliferation of writers’ festivals including the increasingly popular
Wollongong Writers Festival. Libraries are also important public spaces where local writers’ works are
held, connecting them to the wider regional community. As a spin-off they help cross-promote bookstore
sales through holding author nights, lectures and holding these author’s books on their shelves.
Wollongong City Council operates library branches in the CBD, Corrimal, Dapto, Thirroul, Warrawong,
Unanderra and Helensburgh. In April 2019 the Council announced upgrades to the Helensburgh and
Warrawong libraries. These libraries are also dedicated and vital community centres which are essential
places for the growth of community literacy. In Wollongong this is achieved through programs that target
early childhood, as well as local history and heritage, usually using state of the art digital sites and
software programs (Wollongong City Council, 2018, pp. 27, 31 & 37).
Strategic theme 2: The relationship of cultural and creative activity to the
wider economy
Mining the Census and ABR data by SA2 level it can be seen that there are clusters of creative industries
operatives not only working across the interconnections between the two major subsectors of Creative
Services and Cultural Production but there are those who are also embedded within other sectors of the
wider regional economy. One good example is in advertising and marketing. Professionals from this
subsector are located in, for example, higher and vocational education services (the University of
Wollongong and TAFE), in banking and financial services (the Illawarra Credit Union), emergency services
(the SES), accommodation services, management consultancies and in market research and statistical
services firms as well as elsewhere. This includes being embedded within all forms of government in the
region.
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