Creative Carousel at The Skep, Moulsecoomb Place

On Friday 28 November 2025, The Skep, the new venue at Moulsecoomb Place, hosted 20+ media students aged between 14-17 from BACA, accompanied by Alex West, Head of Media, as part of Discover! Creative Careers Month. The industry-led programme runs year-round, with November focused on giving young people direct access to creative employers. This year, 79,134 young people aged 11–18 took part, challenging the idea that creative careers are only for a narrow demographic or confined to London and the South East. 

Funded and supported by Coastal Catalyst, the project, led by EBT, brought together several of Moulsecoomb Place’s creative tenant partners, including AudioActive, Culture Shift and Brighton People’s Theatre. EBT CEO Gary Pleece hosted the session, sharing his experience of more than 20 years running creative agencies. His route into the sector was non-linear: leaving school at 15 with no qualifications other than one art o-level, working across Brighton’s creative scene as a musician and graphic novelist, before returning to education at 40 to gain a professional marketing diploma. Tom from AudioActive, a rapper and youth worker for over 20 years with the organisation, also spoke about his own varied career path and how different experiences have shaped the work he does now. The students found the talks engaging, enlightening and sometimes, hard to believe as Gary also shared his experiences of corporal punishment, having been on the receiving end of slaps to the head and the slipper and cane to the backside whilst at school in London in the early 80s! 

Students took part in hands-on music sessions with AudioActive, from creating a podcast jingle and contributing to tracks on the decks, to writing music in the Mac suites. Others explored how creative teams work through sessions with Meg and Luke from Culture Shift and Jack from Brighton People’s Theatre. They learned about what makes collaboration effective, and how creativity can open up both employment opportunities and wider cultural value. 

This marked the first time tenants at Moulsecoomb Place have worked collectively with local residents. Feedback suggests the impact was clear: many students came away with a broader understanding of the scale and range of opportunities within the creative industries. For too long, Brighton’s cultural focus has been concentrated in the city centre. The shift towards building a strong creative ecosystem in the east and north of the city is underway… 

If you’re a young person from the east or north of Brighton, get involved in AudioActive’s free music sessions. Find out more here.