WYCreate is a brand new series of FREE training opportunities for creative freelancers and microbusinesses in West Yorkshire.

WYCreate has brought together some of the best industry experts in the country to help freelancers and microbusinesses to grow and thrive, by providing tailored creative industries skills development and business support. It will also signpost to other resources, services, industry bodies, and established region-wide creative sector freelancer networks.

Courses available now

  •   All training is FREE for eligible West Yorkshire creative freelancers and microbusinesses

  •    You may be eligible for additional support if you are unwaged, disabled or a carer – click here for details

  •     If you want to alert us to any special needs you have in attending the training, please email us.

    Eligibility and FAQs

Music Innovators

Freelancers and Microbusinesses

Wednesday 20 November 2024, 10:00 - 16:00
The Attic (at Neighbourhood / Aire Park), 3 Sheaf St, LS10 1HD. 

  • This is a programme to support and empower music freelances who are original copyright creators and managers of music intellectual property, to maximise the potential income generated, and the ability to create and sustain new music revenue streams

  • The Launchpad Music Freelances programme kick offs with a day long launch day in Leeds, which will cover the fundamentals of music royalties, digital distribution and product delivery, and frameworks for working and managing businesses in the music industry. Two further online sessions in early 2025 will cover specialist areas of monetising music and audience building with focus on music for media, sync and digital marketing and content creation with a final session covering routes to further development, funding and network building. 


  • Samuel Nicholls, or whiskas as he is mainly known in the music industry, is a Senior Lecturer in Music at Leeds Beckett University, founding the BA Music Industries Management course. He initiated the Music:Leeds project in 2017, before establishing the emerging talent programme ,Launchpad, and building Music:Local as a vehicle to connect and support local music sectors more broadly.

Give Your Creative Enterprise the AI Advantage - Inspiration Webinar

Freelancers and Microbusinesses

Monday 11 November 2024, 15:00 - 16:00
online / delivered - please sign up to newsletter for more courses below.

First in a series of three AI workshops

  • Running a creative business is hard. We constantly battle pressures from all angles, creating work and delivering services, whilst trying to deal with all of the other stuff that no-one ever told us about before we started: admin, finance, operations, and sales.

    Whether you’re a freelancer or a small business, the same is always true: there aren’t enough hours in the day.

    ‘Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage’ is a new programme from WY Create, designed to help you explore how Generative AI can supercharge your productivity. 

    We’ll focus on how these tools save time on more mundane business tasks, freeing up more time to build the real value in your enterprise: your creative products and services.

    The programme is designed and delivered by Phil Birchenall (Diagonal Thinking), and is pragmatic, inspiring and hands-on, helping you to create AI-powered workflows you can use in your businesses immediately.

  • The programme starts with a one hour online ‘Inspiration’ webinar, which will inspire you to rethink you just what’s with possible Generative AI. We’ll work through a series of experimental uses of AI that will change your perceptions of tools such as ChatGPT.

  • Phil Birchenall is the founder of Diagonal Thinking. With over 20 years of experience working hands-on with creative, media, and digital businesses, Phil collaborates with founders and executives to build practical solutions that drive growth. Having spent the last two years exploring AI’s role in business strategy, Phil has been called upon to create and deliver pragmatic and engaging workshops and presentations for creative businesses, large corporates, public sector organisations, and educators. His work has been featured in Forbes and the bestselling edtech book, The AI Classroom.

Mastering AI: Prompting, Iteration and Innovation

Freelancers and Microbusinesses

Monday 25 November 2024, 10:30 - 16:00
The Great Victoria Hotel Bridge Street, Bradford.
Second in a series of three AI  workshops on the theme, ‘Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage’

  • Whether you’re a freelancer or a small business, the same is always true: there aren’t enough hours in the day.

    ‘Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage’ is a new programme from WY Creates, designed to help you explore how generative AI can supercharge your productivity. 

    And don’t panic! We’ll focus on how these tools to save time with more mundane business tasks, freeing up more time for you to build the really value in your enterprise: your creative products and services.

    The programme is designed and delivered by Phil Birchenall (Diagonal Thinking), and is pragmatic, inspiring and hands-on, helping you to create AI-powered workflows you can use in your businesses immediately.

  • Building on the online webinar, you’ll learn how to get the most out of ChatGPT in this hands-on workshop. We’ll explore how to get great results through effective prompt-writing, training AI with data and knowledge, and iterating responses.

    The session will introduce you ChatGPT’s ‘pro' functionality (inc Vision, Voice Conversation, Browsing and Advanced Data Analysis) to really supercharge your AI game, and we’ll also show you how to create CustomGPTs to support repeating or complex tasks.

  • Phil Birchenall is the founder of Diagonal Thinking. With over 20 years of experience working hands-on with creative, media, and digital businesses, Phil collaborates with founders and executives to build practical solutions that drive growth. Having spent the last two years exploring AI’s role in business strategy, Phil has been called upon to create and deliver pragmatic and engaging workshops and presentations for creative businesses, large corporates, public sector organisations, and educators. His work has been featured in Forbes and the bestselling edtech book, The AI Classroom.

  • Mastering AI: Prompting, Iteration and Innovation

    Date: Monday 25th November 2024

    Location: Lanchester Room, The Great Victoria Hotel Bridge Street, Bradford BD1 1JX

Hands-On: Deploying Generative AI in your Creative Business

Freelancers and Microbusinesses

Monday 02 December 2024 - 10:00 - 16:00
The Great Victoria Hotel Bridge Street, Bradford
Third and final workshop in the AI series on the theme, ‘Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage’

  • Whether you’re a freelancer or a small business, the same is always true…there aren’t enough hours in the day.

    ‘Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage’ is a new programme from WY Creates, designed to help you explore how generative AI can supercharge your productivity. 

    And don’t panic! We’ll focus on how these tools to save time with more mundane business tasks, freeing up more time for you to build the really value in your enterprise: your creative products and services.

    The programme is designed and delivered by Phil Birchenall (Diagonal Thinking), and is pragmatic, inspiring and hands-on, helping you to create AI-powered workflows you can use in your businesses immediately.

  • The final hands-on workshop will see you designing your own AI solutions to apply in your creative enterprise, from admin and operations through to business development and marketing. Throughout the day, you’ll learn through practical examples that will demonstrate how productivity gains can be created with relatively little effort.


    We’ll begin by exploring how Generative AI can support core business admin and operations, before looking at how the tools can support business development functions of your creative business, particularly around responding to tenders and funding applications.


  • What you’ll learn


    • Rethink what’s possible with AI and unlock new creative potential

    • Master the art of writing prompts to get the best out of ChatGPT

    • Tap into pro ChatGPT features: Vision, Voice, Browsing, and Advanced Data Analysis

    • Build custom AI tools to handle repetitive tasks in your business

    • Create AI workflows that save time and boost productivity

    • See how AI can streamline everything from admin to winning new business


    Pre-requisites


    Give Your Creative Enterprise The AI Advantage is designed as a complete programme of workshops, building your knowledge throughout each individual session.

    Delegates on AI Workshops 2 and 3 will need to bring a laptop or suitable device, and will require a paid subscription to ChatGPT. Information on pricing can be found here: https://openai.com/chatgpt/pricing*

  • Phil Birchenall is the founder of Diagonal Thinking. With over 20 years of experience working hands-on with creative, media, and digital businesses, Phil collaborates with founders and executives to build practical solutions that drive growth. Having spent the last two years exploring AI’s role in business strategy, Phil has been called upon to create and deliver pragmatic and engaging workshops and presentations for creative businesses, large corporates, public sector organisations, and educators. His work has been featured in Forbes and the bestselling edtech book, The AI Classroom.

  • Hands-On: Deploying Generative AI in your Creative Business

    Date: Monday 2nd December 2024

    Location: Lanchester Room, The Great Victoria Hotel Bridge Street, Bradford BD1 1JX

XR event - Production Park

Freelancers and Microbusinesses

Friday 06 December - 09:00 - 16:30
Wakefield, Production Park

  • The Academy of Live Technology presents a unique one-day opportunity to absorb the world of immersive technology including Virtual Production, 3D World building, (Including Unreal Engine) state of the art lighting control systems and immersive display technology You will get to see the creation of immersive environments with “real-life” demonstrations and hands-on exposure to a state of the art unique studio with special capture, camera tracking and large scale LED volume with both 2D and 2D environments including generative AI solutions.

    09:00   09:30    Welcome
    09:30   10:30    Masterclass 1
    10:30    12:30    Masterclass 2
    12:30    13:30    Lunch Break
    13:30    15:30    Masterclass 3
    15:30    15:45    Break
    15:45    16:30    Panel
    16:30    18:30    Networking in CentR Stage

    The course will be delivered in partnership with our existing industry partners including Media Server companies Disguise & Hive, LED Visual Display provider Roe Visual and MA.

    The Academy of Live Technology has delivered specialist degree courses for over 10 years for live events and visual design subject areas and have more recently developed a suite of more concise industry short courses in live event production, stage and screen production and Virtual Production and Unreal Engine which has been delivered to more than 2000 participants in the UK and Middle East.

  • You will get to see the creation of immersive environments with 'real-life' demonstrations and hands-on exposure to a state of the art studio with spatial capture, camera tracking and large scale LED volumes with both 2D and 3D environments including generative AI solutions.

    The course will be delivered in partnership with existing industry partners including Media Server companies Disguise and Hive, LED Visual Display provider Roe Visual and Vodafone.

    The Academy of Live Technology has delivered specialist degree courses for live events and visual design subject areas for over 10 years. It has more recently developed a suite of more concise industry short courses in live event production, stage and screen production and Virtual Production and Unreal Engine, delivered to more than 200 people in the UK and more than 2,000 in the Middle East.


  • This event is designed not only for those working in live events production but also open to creatives in the wider West Yorkshire creative community including those working in museums, art galleries, advertising and design agencies, TV and film.

  • 25 places 

    Venue - Production Park South Kirkby Wakefield