The success of the Festival – as a commissioning and producing festival – is built upon its ability to gather together a team of talented producers who can work with international artists, nurture their creative collaborations and support risk-taking and experimentation.

As more and more artists move towards creating new work that sits outside of traditional art forms, venues and delivery structures the role of producer becomes increasingly difficult and even more important.

For 2009, MIF launched a new Trainee Producer programme open only to emerging producers from Greater Manchester. The 5 emerging producers (Dafydd Launder, Ella Byford, Melanie Groeber, Joe Cassar and James Jepson) each worked with MIF for 6 months, being closely mentored by MIF Producers and undertaking skills and enterprise training by MIF in collaboration with NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

Image ©Tim Sinclair