Ask the actual creator of this acronym, Toon Carpentier, what it means, and he will just shrug. “Mostly I say: ‘If you think hard enough, you can discover the meaning for yourself,’ and then I get a lot of interesting ideas. But in truth, it doesn’t stand for anything.” It may be maddeningly meaningless, but it was the name of a huge event that took place in Hasselt last weekend. “I have attended a number of larger, expensive marketing events, and it was old people telling other old people what young people were doing,” says Carpentier. “I realised there was no organisation for young creative people, whether they are scientists or entrepreneurs. I wondered what would happen if we brought these people together in one place.”
The 26-year-old works for Creative Class, an organisation that encourages more entrepreneurial creativity and more creative entrepreneurship in Limburg province. The older Creative Class board members didn’t necessarily understand the younger people in the industry, but they understood their importance. Toon proposed an event by and for younger people and was given responsibility for organising it.
“We worked really hard to turn this into a co-creation concept,” he explains. “At every step we worked with a continually growing group of young people to really make it an event they would love. Everything – from video to the website to the graphics was made by young creative people.”
As was the menu. “It annoys me that conference food is always fancy and not very tasty. So we had fries and pizza and dessert.” While this is a simple element, he is driving at a larger point: the importance of understanding young people and speaking to them directly.
#YTLF! was also staged in a completely different way. “For young people, sitting an entire day in a lecture is boring, and it’s what they hated from school,” continues Carpentier. “So we did it like a festival, with different stages and various things happening at the same time. You could walk around and immerse yourself or be surprised; leave if you don’t like something and try something new.”
With hundreds of creative types attending, all under 30, this festival atmosphere is entirely appropriate. Now the name makes more sense. “We’re doing something that hasn’t been done before, so there isn’t a word for it,” Carpentier explains. “It is simply young creative people coming together. We’re defining it.”
He won approval from Creative Class, as young people are one of their target groups. This event is an ideal example both of connecting with that segment of the population and of a general acknowledgement that creative people are crucial to a vital economy.
“It is difficult to attract talent to the Limburg region, and it’s the reason I started Creative Class in 2008,” says Nick Decrock, 38. “We wanted to be a platform for a creative economy in this region, and north to Maastricht in the Netherlands. The economic crisis was great for creativity – it furthered our message about the need for innovation. We helped policymakers in Belgium and the Netherlands to form a different view of the creative industry here. There is more to our city and region than tourism and the older, traditional industries.”
Creative Class has a similar aim, then, to Flanders DC, the Flemish organisation dedicated to fostering creativity and entrepreneurialism. “Flanders DC formed a year after us, and we immediately sought cooperation from them,” says Decrock. “We do a similar thing – events, workshops, and seminars. We wrote the bid that led to their annual event – the World Creativity Forum – being hosted in Hasselt this year.”
In addition to creating new events like #YTLF!, Creative Class looks at events in other cities to see if they could be brought to the Limburg region. “We don’t want to constantly reinvent the wheel,” notes Decrock. “For example, Maastricht hosts a well-organised Pecha Kucha [quick-fire presentation event] four times a year, and we just hosted one in our town. We did the same with TedXEutropolis, normally hosted in the Netherlands. Last month, we brought it to Hasselt. Basically, it’s about changing behaviour. We’re looking beyond the typical and broadening our horizons.”
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