In Ljubljana 150 participants from 14 nations met at Future Unlocked!, a joint event by the European Creative Industries Summit (ECIS21), Creativeforum.si and the Centre for Creativity Slovenia which is hosted by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Opening ECIS 2021 Bernd Fesel, Managing Director of ECBN, reminded that for Cultural Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) “unlocking” is not a new skill – from forgotten quarters to dead ends in business models: out of the box thinking and creating the future is at the heart of the CCSI since centuries.

However “Unlocking” after Covid-19 crisis is without an example as it is not just rebuilding, it is rebuilding better as EU President von der Leyen would say.

“It is creating a Carbon-Free Europe – nothing less than a new model of society and economy. While the potentials of cultural creative industries and sectors are called upon to achieve these aims – from New European Bauhaus to Horizon Europe / Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society -, the cultural creative industries and sectors themselves must innovative and develop to grow up to this challenge.

Unlocking Europe in the years to come will change the CCSI dramatically and innovate the cultural creative drivers for innovation. We must imbrace this green disruption more than ever before to continue to be the makers of change we have been for so many decades. This conference Future Unlocked is the start pointing for the Great Great Cultural Creative Industries.”
Bernd Fesel at ECIS 2021

Future Unlocked welcomed contributions from EU-Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, EU-Commissioner Bretton, MEP Dr. Christian Ehler, Alison Tickell, Julie´s Bicycle, Charles Landry, Creative Bureaucracy Festival and Eberhard Schrempf, Creative Industries Styria and Michela Magas, Industry Commons Foundation.

ECIS2021 reached to 2.540 online viewers and 1.500.000 contacts via Social Media and proved again to be the yearly event for policy makers in CCSI.