British Columbia’s Creative Sector
#BCCreates our stories and our creative economy.
Orpheus VR
Creative Industries
Book Publishing
British Columbia is the second-largest English language book publishing region in Canada.
Image: Upstart and Crow
Interactive + Digital Media
Canada’s second-largest video game production hub and North America’s second-largest AR/VR centre.
Image: Museum of Other Realities
Magazine Publishing
B.C. has close to 300 publications reflecting the perspective, lifestyle, spirit, and aesthetic of our province.
Image: Folklife Magazine
Motion Picture
North America’s fourth-largest film and TV hubs, creating the world’s top live-action and animated productions.
Image: ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE, Netflix
Music + Sound Recording
B.C. is Canada’s third-largest music production centre with a signature west coast community vibe.
Image: Laketown Shakedown
Multi-Creative Industry Services
Multi-skilled professionals and businesses that service a number of industries within this convergent sector.
Image: “Different Than Before” Amanda Sum
About the Creative Sector
British Columbia is a global leader in content creation and production. The province’s creators and creative companies bring a perspective that is distinctively west coast Canadian to the world of storytelling across all forms of media – from television and theatre screen, to smart phone, game console, e-reader, streaming platform, and printed page.
B.C.’s creative industries and their respective membership associations are supported and united through Creative BC services. They showcase their combined capacity, talent, and strength under the #BCCreates banner, and are well-positioned to seize growing opportunity in an expanding international marketplace that is hungrier than ever for new stories.
Demand for creative products across an evolving suite of delivery platforms is a significant driver of B.C.’s creative economy. Use of mobile, increased streaming, and advancing digital technologies have transformed the industries, challenged business models, and offered new possibilities for content producers. Each of the industries has unique drivers and needs, but all of them must continue to be entrepreneurial as they create, innovate, adapt, and discover new ways to monetize their products. Learn about the 9 Enabling Factors of a thriving creative economy.
Economic Impact
Economic impacts of B.C.’s creative sector are tracked each year by bringing public datasets from Statistics Canada into our story. The bespoke measurement tool that delivers these insights was designed through Creative BC research. Named the Creative Industries Economic Results Assessment (CIERA™), the tool launched 2019 numbers to deliver consistent, comparable and reliable measurements annually for each industry and for the sector overall. Three indicators, Total GDP, Direct Output and Total Jobs, are reported each year using a methodology based entirely on Statistics Canada public datasets.
Complementing CIERA™ insights are real-time research and reports generated by the industries themselves. Together, these lenses form a more informed picture of the industries’ current state.
Resources
Funding Recipients
Annual motion picture tax credit administration and certification data.
BC Creates
Read about British Columbia’s creators.
Research + Reports
Recording Creative BC’s services, activities, and impact by fiscal year.
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