What is Digital Playground?
Digital Playground was created in an attempt to network the digital creative industries within Birmingham.

Birmingham needs to do a better job of creating community amongst its businesses and universities if it is to compete with other emerging 'out of London' creative/digital hubs like Manchester, Bristol and Brighton. After we have created a cohesive community we will be able to start successfully promoting our offerings to the outside.

This is a purely social group but we have always found that it's one of the best ways of meeting potential partners, peers as well as making interesting friends.

The group’s philosophy is of providing a place to informally meet in a social capacity. This is not classical hard networking and we expect members to adopt the group’s relaxed culture.

Who Should Join?
Please apply to join the group if you are involved within the digital creative industries in Birmingham (Advertising and Marketing, Design, Film and Video, Software, Video Games, Music, Television & Radio).

Just to add that the group’s success is totally dependent on its membership and we therefore have the horrible job of having to be quite selective about who joins.

The ground rules of joining are:

1) You are either in a professional role within the digital creative industries or a lecturer/graduate of a related course,
2) You, your business or educational establishment must be located in Birmingham,
3) You must fill out all the introductory fields in your profile with sufficient detail and please provide a picture.

Please note: Although we will approve membership from graduates of related courses that have not yet found employment, we will not approve membership for degree students that have not completed their course.

What do we do?
We run fortnightly pub socials in Digbeth on Friday evenings (17:00 - 22:00). Although the event finishes at 10pm some members choose to go out after. Stickee (event sponsors) will be putting buffet food on the tables from 19:30. We allow members to bring a guest that does not necessarily have to come from the industry.

We will also be starting to setup up other less frequent/more formal events which will include show and tell sessions, presentations from industry/educational leaders as well as attending larger industry events as a group.

History of the Group
The group was first setup by Stickee in 2003 as New Media Playground in London and held regular successful events in Soho. Stickee moved to Birmingham in 2009 and setup Creative Playground which was open to all of the Creative Industries (inc. Performing Arts, Arts and Antiques, Crafts, Architecture and Fashion). In 2010 the group organisers decided to narrow the focus back to the new media sector.

Support & Sponsorship
The best way you can support us is to become an active member of the group. We will always welcome help in the organisation and promotion of the group and its events. If your company would like to support the group by sponsorship or in any other way please get in touch.  Sponsorship of any nature will only be considered if it will be used to the members benefit.