Open

Culture open doors.

Culture can open routes to skills, confidence and employment for thousands of people across Sussex, at every stage of life.

The sector can be one of Sussex’s great engines of opportunity — not only for those who end up on a stage, in a studio or behind a camera, but for the larger workforce that makes cultural life possible. Every festival, theatre, museum, heritage site, music venue and visitor attraction needs technicians, producers, security, catering, retail, digital, marketing, finance, construction, transport and customer service. These are real jobs and transferable skills, often rooted in the places where opportunity is weakest. Sussex already has the beginnings of powerful pathways through schools, colleges, universities, cultural organisations and employers.

With skills a genuine mayoral responsibility, the opportunity is to turn this fragmented activity into a visible route from work experience to professional careers — opening doors for thousands more Sussex people, not simply growing a small “creative class”.