Creative Collaboration is a British Council regional project with the participation of artists, cultural leaders and creative entrepreneurs across South-East Europe and the UK. Creative Collaboration uses innovative approaches to networking in order to encourage arts and cultural leaders from different countries and different art forms to talk together, learn from each other and develop new partnerships for effective cross-border working. The project is bringing together leading arts professionals from the UK and across Europe to work on issues like public space, arts and professional development, social inclusion, cultural leadership and creative cities. Through a series of Open Space events, delegates will network internationally in their professional area of interest. There will be five events throughout the region, including Bulgaria, using the Open Space Technology where the invited participants from different countries will define the agenda and convene a session on the issue they feel is important. The participants from 17 countries who have been invited to participate in the Open Space discussions in Varna are passionate about the questions: “Creative Cities….How can we develop our cities to be more creative and diverse? What role do festivals have in the creative development of our cities?” Festival guests will be able to attend the Information session on 6 June which will provide the latest information on European cultural co-operation funding opportunities, which is part of the programme for professional development and training activities. The specific focus of the Information session is the EU Culture programme (2007-2013), along with the latest programmes for education  and training. Festival visitors will also see the result of a collaboration between Bulgarian and UK artists. Participants in the contemporary dance workshop led by Robert Tannion (UK) and Rossen Mihailov (BG) will take part in the 36 more 4 less performance presented in the festival programme on 6 June.