Why you’d be crazy to miss GrowthLab

Victoria Powell

With GrowthLab, a major new event from the team at Indielab, just around the corner on 9 February, TBI sat down with Indielab CEO Victoria Powell to discover why it should be in every indie founder’s diary.

Why have you launched GrowthLab now?

The market is in flux like never before and there are many changes afoot that are likely to impact producers – everything from how our PSBs will be funded, rising production costs and skills shortages to ever-changing streamer strategies plus the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on advertising revenues. For UK indies, all this means that there’s never been a more important time to stay connected, think outside your current areas of expertise and challenge your thinking and growth plans.

We have always prioritised showing indies how to access opportunity, while helping them focus on their development and growth, and it now feels essential to bring everyone together at the beginning of 2023 to check-in and explore new ways to thrive in the changing marketplace. The New Year is a perfect time to take stock and, if necessary, re-set – or pivot – to move ahead.

What sort of indies will be attending?

We’ve designed GrowthLab for indies working in scripted or non-scripted genres – and for small to medium-sized companies looking to grow. We have worked hard to create a schedule that provides the same level of impact for indies that could be decade down the line, or only launched this year. And this is borne out in the list of delegates so far – who come from across the sector.

There’s a lot of change in the industry at present – and a lot of doom and gloom in general – but you are very positive about the fate of UK indies. Why is that?

We’ve worked closely with UK indies for more eight years, and we’re continually blown away by the talent in the UK; talent which is always in demand, both at home and overseas. And I see no reason for this to dramatically change with the talent pool we have. However, nobody can take for granted the old structures and ways of doing business – so we are here to help indies stay on the front foot as we all go through periods of change in the industry.

All the events and programmes we deliver are really concentrated on helping indies maintain a competitive advantage by finding and delivering growth opportunities and then helping make them as accessible as possible. We are now packaging this with the very latest sector knowledge and insights for 2023 and making everything available to even more indies, and more company founders, through this, our largest event to date.

How will GrowthLab differ from other events in the 2023 industry calendar?

The whole event is designed to deliver growth for indies, and I don’t know of another event or conference that has that focus on all of the content it delivers. Every five minutes of our event should point to a strategy that can clearly add to the delegates’ bottom line. Every piece of content that we put on, every partner that we’ve brought on board, can help you grow your business.

And we’ve re-invigorated the panel session format with high levels of interactivity and open discussion. We’ve also created Lab Talks, 12-minute punchy and insightful talks from industry leaders on topics that we know can make a real difference to indie growth – such as how to pivot and nailing the big idea.

Critically for indies, we have a market hall of distributors and production finance businesses that are ready and waiting to invest in their programmes. We’ve run these market halls for eight years and they have delivered meaningful deals for both indies and partners every time – often proving the catalyst for long-running profitable partnerships. And I’m delighted to announce that Newen Connect and DCD Rights have recently been added to the list of Banijay Rights, BBC Studios, Passion Distribution, Hat Trick, Silverlining, Bossanova, Great Point and Abacus Media Rights.

Even if you are long in the tooth, feel like you know it all, and everyone, and you have no current need for finance, where else will you get to download all this up-to-the-minute global market knowledge – straight off the back of big events such as Realscreen, Berlinale and Content Americas – in one afternoon, and in one room? Ambitious indies keen to get an edge in the market this year would be crazy to miss it!

There are still a few final tickets remaining – book yours at: https://weareindielab.co.uk/growthlab

TBI is the exclusive media partner for GrowthLab. For more info on the event, click here.