Alongside artists and musicians, the cultural and creative economy courted by many towns also includes publishing companies, the film economy, radio/TV, journalist, museums and galleries, the art trade, architects, designers, advertisers and software developers. These branches are considered to be significant for the sustainability of a region.
The largest city in the MRN, Mannheim, is regarded as a competence centre for the music and creative economy in Germany. In 2008, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" Sunday newspaper published a ranking table which listed Mannheim among the "top 10" creative cities in Germany. Building on its multi-facetted musical tradition ranging from the classical period of the Elector era through to the Xavier Naidoo pop music of the modern age, in recent years the 320,000-strong city has advanced to become one of the country's acknowledged centres for both the music and the creative economies. It benefits from the support of well-known stars and respected specialists, the influx of professionals and talents, and from a target-oriented city area and municipal development policy.
The "Mannheim model" enjoys a European-wide role model status for its support of the creative economy, which is concentrated around the neighbouring Pop Academy and Music Park. The city's concerted support and funding policy even includes a special representative for music and pop culture. These efforts are also being rewarded at a higher level and should bear even more fruit. The European Union and Baden-Württemberg state authorities are boosting the music economy with more than 400,000 euros, which means that together with municipal funding, 600,000 euros will be made available over the next three years for setting up a professional cluster management.
In future, from its offices in the Music Park the cluster management will also be acting as a central point of contact and advisory centre for companies, relocators and start-ups. Together with a Friends' Association, the cluster aims to support the competitiveness and innovative capability of the industry taking the Music Park and Pop Academy as its crystallisation points. The Music Park start-up centre, which opened in 2004, today already includes 60 companies which together generate a total turnover of around 25 million euros. The Music Park is Germany's first start-up centre for the music industry.
The Pop Academy Baden-Württemberg was founded in 2003 as the first college of its kind in Germany. Now offering around 60 first-term student places, it receives more than ten times that number of applications. For this reason, an expansion of Mannheim's academy of pop music is being supported by the EU and the federal state of Baden-Württemberg with funding totalling 3.7 million euros, which is primarily intended to expand the scope of education it offers. The two BA courses in "Pop Music Design" and "Music Business" are being complemented with the MA courses in "Popular Music“ and "Music & Creative Industries".
The extremely vibrant film economy also belongs to the MRN's creative economy. The city of Mannheim, acting jointly with the Zukunft Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar e.V. society, has taken an important step in raising the MRN's profile as a filmmaking location with the establishment of its own Film Commission project manager. The Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region Film Commission (MRN FC) is a central regional point of contact for filmmakers, setting up contacts as well as organising filming permits and locations. At filmcommission-mrn.com, in addition to film news, the MRN FC also offers a production guide containing the addresses of film and production-related resources and a location guide with details of film locations in the region.
