Alternative Budget Day 2026

Before any debating began, the day opened with a playful Alternative Bake Off, using real cake to explain four competing economic models. These edible metaphors helped make economic theory accessible, human, and fun.

Participants explored and tasted:

• Maximum Cake – growth at all costs; unstable, competitive, trickle-down logic
• The Fairer Cut – more equal redistribution, though “equal” doesn’t always mean “fair”
• Doughnut Economics – thriving within social and planetary boundaries
• The Circular Cake – no waste: people, skills, ideas and resources kept in use

By slicing, sharing and debating these cakes, attendees experienced how each model feels in practice, where the pressure lies, where inequality creeps in, and where creative communities thrive.

The message was simple:
When everyone understands the ingredients, everyone can help redesign the recipe. 

Next came our Alternative House of Commons–style debate, a theatrical reimagining complete with cake-shaped voting paddles, an Alternative Chancellor, and a Speaker guiding the conversation.

Participants didn’t just listen; they legislated.

Drawing on lived experience, they interrogated how these “cake models” shape real creative lives: The debate focussed on real live issues, including:

• Microbusinesses are pushed to scale before they’re ready.
• Funding systems often lock out the very people they’re meant to support.
• Invisible labour—collaboration, unpaid support, community care—goes unrecognised.
• Resilience and patient, long-term investment matter more than rapid growth.
• Social and environmental limits aren’t optional—they’re essential.

The results of the vote were telling: 

Circular Economy: 24 votes
Doughnut Economics: 21 votes
Fairer Cut: 4 votes
Bigger Cake: 0 votes

A clear shift toward sustainability, fairness, resourcefulness and community, the values that underpin the creative sector and The Studio itself.

At The Studio, we believe that creativity thrives when experimentation, play and imagination are given space. 

Alternative Budget Day showcased exactly that: 

• Immersive theatre blended with immersive tech. 

• Economic models turned into tactile, edible metaphors. 

• A policy event that felt less like a conference and more like a co-created performance. 

• A community-led debate that elevated lived knowledge over jargon. 

This is The Studio’s approach in action; supporting microbusinesses and creative practitioners with experiences, networks and methods that help them imagine and shape a better future. 

The ideas generated on the day have now been turned into a regional publication:
The Alternative Creative Budget Summary.

This collaborative document outlines recommendations and next steps for:

• fairer resourcing of creative microbusinesses,
• adopting circular and doughnut-led approaches,
• improving funding and procurement access,
• and growing a creative economy that genuinely nourishes.

You can read the working version below:

And you can help shape the movement.

The Studio is bringing together microbusinesses, freelancers, funders, policymakers and researchers to turn this work from theory into action.
If you care about building an economy that values creativity, collaboration and care, we’d love you to be part of it.

• Register your interest here and fill in this form.
• Share the document with colleagues and networks
• Tell us your priorities for pilot programmes, assemblies, and the MicroBusiness Support & Regeneration Fund