photo 2 (1)Surrey:  The photo 1 (2)Creative Economy Business Dialogue took place on Wednesday, June 18th. The purpose of this event was to have input on how to support growth and innovation in our local arts & cultural Industries. The Surrey Board of Trade, City of Surrey, South Surrey & White Rock Chamber of Commerce and Semiahmoo Arts partnered on this event to focus on and recognize the economic and social value of fostering a thriving cultural industry in the Semiahmoo Peninsula. One of the components of the event was keynote speaker, Howard Jang, who will be joining SFU Woodward’s Cultural Unit as their new Director in August. Previously Howard served for 14 years as the Executive Director of Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre Company. During his talk at the event Howard focused on research conducted to measure the economic impact of the Stanley Alliance Theatre on the South Granville business district in Vancouver and how these benefits could be realized through future cultural spaces proposed for the South Surrey Town Centre and other cultural industries in Surrey. Shiela McKinnon, Manager of Arts Services  made a presentation on  how City of Surrey is evolving in terms of Arts  and where does it stand nationally in the list of ‘edge cities’ despite being in proximity of the Vancouver that tops the national list when it comes to the concentration of artists and cultural.  Surrey is currently at the bottom of the ladder and lots of work needs to be done to bring to top, right now Burnaby is on the top of the list of cities with population less than 500,000.