The Arts Co-Lab has been a busy place as of late and there have been some great discussions. Here are the latest observations from the team:

Today's festivals dialogues were filled to the brim and we needed to open a second room to accommodate the attendees! The biggest takeaways for me: Fairytales Film Fest told the group that their bright spots included "bring a straight" night and Q Arts which has opened them and our city to new and younger audiences. We also heard a lot about the value that arts in education and artists in education bring to the sector and how important it is to have the long view in this regard. Raising our children in a culture of culture, imagine that! -Patti Pon

Bright spots ran amuck during the film and new media dialogue. YYC is a great place for emerging artists to develop, the number of film festivals are flourishing, its 2nd nature how the YYC arts community collaborate so much, and Mayor Nenshi. -Patti Pon

There were several bright spots from the literary arts session today. All of the groups represented have experienced increases in their audience/subscription/membership numbers in recent years, and there were many individual successes as well as collective (poet laureate program for one). There are new exciting orgs popping up like the People's Poetry Festival and When Words Collide. Both a contributing factor and a result of these successes could be the strength of U of C's creative writing program (similar to what was described as happening in dance). -Jordan Baylon

Collaboration dominated as a contributing factor to bright spots in the Community Music session this morning. Several in the group suggested that increased collaboration has stemmed from more opportunities to build capacity and increased networking opportunities that weren't so readily encouraged seven years ago. -JoAnn Reynolds

These conversations are phase one of a three-phase process that will include a public consultation and vision-setting process, leading to the development of a long-term strategic plan for the development of the arts in Calgary. This process is described in our most recent Strategic Plan.

You don't need to take part in these sessions to tell us what you think. Please feel free to respond to the discussion questions online.

also see previous comments: Current State of the Arts Dialogue Sessions: What We Are Hearing So Far