Creative Places: Gateshead Culture Strategy

Gateshead is the entrance to the North. It is the Angel of the North. It is a constellation of communities that stretches from Chopwell to Wardley and Leam Lane, and from Blaydon to Birtley. Gateshead is a creative power surrounded by Newcastle, County Durham, Northumberland, Sunderland, and North and South Tyneside. It is global arts, community groups, and a music scene that is the envy of the country. It is sporty, crafty, and outdoorsy all at once.

It is a place where, as someone told us, "You can do things where you can't do anywhere else." 

Gateshead has enjoyed the second highest creative industries growth between 2015 to 2024 (the last year of data) in all of NECA. The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art has welcomed over 8 million visitors since 2002 and stands as testament to the power of culture led regeneration. Just down the Quays the Glasshouse attracts more than 2 million people each year for gigs, concerts, and classes. The Shipley Art Gallery whose displays and activities cement the Northeast as a home of making, industry and skilled craftsmanship.

And culture does not stop there. In Gateshead culture is not a thing that is distant, remote, or inaccessible. It is the lifeblood of the place that seeps into the life of the borough. Culture is the blue plaques that remind residents and visitors that people like Daniel Defoe and Emily Davies were deeply influenced by our place. It is the bridges that speak to our industrial heritage and connect us to other thriving economies in the North. It is the Chopwell pump track that hosted the world championship qualifiers, the Gateshead International Stadium which hosts two football teams, and it is the 117 square kilometres Land of Oak and Iron which blends nature with Gateshead's industrial past to spark new conversations.

Culture is Gateshead's people. The leading asset of our home. It is the people that run, attend, and participate in Gateshead's International Festival of Theatre. It is the Art Diamonds that run creative programmes for people across Gateshead. It is dancing in Deckham, it is the food festival in Saltwell Park made possible by volunteers, and it is Gem Arts, Orbis, the Little Theatre, and many others, that make arts accessible to everyone. It is an interior world made real through art and an exterior one celebrated through gymnastics, dancing, the football stadium, and a lineage of sporting champions.

Gateshead is hard to define because it is so much wrapped in a sprawling, public art laden, heritage packed, rural, urban, town centre, beautiful countryside, historic setting, modern outlook, place. 

It is our home and it is the place where culture is everywhere.