Name: Freelancers Unconferenced: Leadership
Start: 2025-11-17T13:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-11-17T14:30:00+00:00
Location: Tyne Theatre & Opera House

Five freelancers will take the floor to speak on a topic that's important to them, then open the conversation to the rest of the room.
About this Event

Join us for a rare industry event where freelancers get to steer the conversation.

Freelancers Unconferenced opens the floor to five freelancers in the arts, culture, and heritage sector, who will speak on a subject they are passionate about. Those freelancers then choose a dedicated section of the room to continue their conversation with the audience, who will have the choice of which conversation they'd like to be part of.

For this pilot event, we've chosen the theme of leadership, which is a hot topic of conversation at North East Cultural Freelancers. Freelancers are leaders - but they don't always think of themselves that way. We're inviting our freelance community to take ownership of their position as leaders and decide how they want to lead.

The main speaker will speak for five minutes and will be selected from the previous graduates of our Cultural Leadership Programme. If you're a freelancer and you'd like to take one of the four regular speaker slots, which are 2-3 minutes long, please fill in this form by Friday 31 October: Freelancers Unconferenced speaker pitch. Speakers will be informed of our decision by Monday 3 November and will be paid a fee of £150.

This event isn't just for freelancers; we invite those working for cultural organisations, local authorities and funders to come and hear what's important to the freelance workforce. If you're able to, we ask that you buy a donation ticket to support this and future events.

Thanks to Creative Central: NCL, we have a small number of £50 bursaries available to freelancers who require financial support to attend. To apply, email [email protected] with a few lines on why you’d like to attend and how it supports your work. If applications exceed availability, we’ll prioritise freelancers based in Newcastle and those from backgrounds currently under-represented in the cultural sector.

This event is supported by Creative Central NCL, with in-kind support from Tyne Theatre & Opera House.