Creative Scenes in Today's World

Though this Barbara Walters interview with Guy Laliberte' is about his personal journey, at about 1:56 we hear about the initial creative scene that spawned an pioneering artistic idea that also became a business empire.  Guy says that the street performers of Montreal had this old idea about starting their own circus.  Guy and Gilles St.Croix spearheaded a group of those street performers in the mid-1980's to realize that dream, and Cirque du Soleil was born.  Not only did a couple dozen street performers actually start a circus, they completely redefined what a circus was.  How does that happen?  That is the magic, and the potential, of a really amazing Creative Scene.

So what is a Creative Scene?  We are all familiar with the concept of an "art scene" or a "music scene."  Those are two types of Creative Scenes.  They are a loosely knit group of artists or musicians, and people in roles that support the scene, with talented people that both compete with each other and work together on a variety of creative projects and ideas.

But as a 16-year-old BMX racer in Boise, Idaho, I learned that BMX bike riding also had scenes, and there was a creative aspect to it.  That's when I became interested in the concept of scenes.  I have been a part of many different scenes in my life, BMX/freestyle scenes, art scenes, entrepreneurial scenes, video and TV production scenes, skateboarding scenes, and rock climbing scenes.  Oh, and I worked in the box office and on some of the set-up/teardown crews of Cirque du Soleil's first five tours to Orange County, California.  I worked for Cirque when it was a single touring circus under the big top, one tour after the initial idea.

I came to realize that a small group of motivated people with a similar interest, one that involves some kind of creativity, sometimes turns into huge projects, sports, businesses, and even entire worldwide industries.  I also saw that some scenes were great for the handful of people in them, but never really grew into anything larger.  I became fascinated with Creative Scenes of all kinds.  I wondered why some grow into huge things, and some don't, and what the difference was.

Then, in 2009, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I first heard of the book, The Rise of the Creative Class, by Richard Florida.  In that book, he was describing high tech Creative Scenes, and why they tended to spring up in places that already had thriving music and art scenes.  He even described certain cities having a "creative ecosystem," a "scene of scenes."  In professor Florida's book, I began to understand the economic role Creative Scenes played in our Information Age, hyper-connected society.

Huge parts of of country continue to struggle economically, even now, 20 or 30 years after the loss of most of their local factories and high paying manufacturing jobs, and a decade after The Great Recession.  I wondered if finding and nurturing creative scenes could be a legitimate part of rebuilding the depressed areas of the United States.

While I'm beginning to do online and social marketing for an old friend's bike business, to make a living again, this Creative Scenes idea is my main writing focus.  In coming posts I'm going to be sharing a lot of what I've learned about Creative Scenes of all types, why I think some blow up huge, and others just cruise or fade, and other thoughts on this whole concept.  Stay tuned.  So go do something creative between now and the next post on this theme.