On Wednesday night, the City of Ballarat councillors voted unanimously to acknowledge the findings of the Creative City Strategy Report Card 2021/22 which revealed less than one in three people operating in the arts sphere found their practice "not sustainable".

The main challenge many cited in not being able to see longevity in their endeavours was the difficulties in "balancing their financial needs with time to produce creative works".

This figure was even more staggering for Ballarat's younger cohort with the results identifying "no one aged under 30 reporting confidence in the sustainability of their creative practice".

"Two thirds of those aged 15-30 are working and report that they are bringing in an income from other means, but they don't have enough opportunity to produce increased creative outputs," the survey wrote.

Ballarat-based artist, Christopher Risk, 27, said while he would like to pursue his sculpting in a more professional capacity, he has been unable to do so.

He said pricing his bespoke pieces and enticing people to purchase them was the biggest hurdle.

"I find it really difficult to put a price tag on it (sculptures) because you have to take into account the money people are will willing to spend on art as well as the time and effort put into pieces and sometimes people find it a little too expensive to spend that kind of money," Mr Risk said.

"So it's made it not very sustainable for me to do my art as a sort of full-time thing."

To supplement his artistic creations, Mr Risk is currently having to work full time as a dispense technician.

He said he agreed finding the time to allocate to his sculptures while managing work at the chemist was especially cumbersome.

"Balancing work and art, then putting in the time, after I finish (work) is really difficult because I've only got so many hours left in the day," Mr Risk said.

Full-time multidisciplinary artist Holly Would, 37, who has her works on display in Bridge Mall, echoed similar sentiments.

She said an area the council could focus on to help relieve this pressure faced by creatives is by providing them with business skills.

"Programs teaching artists how to do business for example, because we can't afford to outsource those sorts of things. We can't afford to pay someone to do those things for us. So we end up actually doing it ourselves. So that's where the council could step up," Ms Would said.

City of Ballarat mayor Cr Des Hudson said he understood the need for more recognition and financial compensation to be provided for the region's creatives.

He said the trope within the community of assuming artists will work for free was particularly disadvantageous for those in the creative sector.

"I've worked on some community art programs before and everyone throws out the line, 'let's just get an artist they'll almost work for free' and hang on artists have needs exactly the same as everyone else. They've got mortgages to pay. They're putting kids through schools and I think through the (Creative City) strategy and when artists are saying that it shines the light saying, we need to value the absolute creativity that people put into their craft that bring vibrancy to our city," Cr Hudson said.

However, he made clear it would be a "longer journey" to achieve such outcomes.

Although, he did mention as part of the City of Ballarat's Live Music Strategic Plan there would be more paid opportunities for performers into the future.

"We use lots of paid performers in our own events team. So we were paying artists to do that. So we realise we've got a role to play in when we are choosing artists and when remunerating them properly for those events they do participate in," Cr Hudson said.

As for younger artists, he said the council's Sonika group, which has run for many years and is a part of the state government's FReeZa initiative aimed at providing young people the opportunity to plan and stage live events, was helping to develop self belief for artists under 30.

"I think through our FReeZa events and our Sonika youth programs that are very much about young and emerging artists, especially in the music scene, that can build their confidence and give them opportunities to refine their craft and be in front of audiences that build up their confidence," Cr Hudson said.

He did however say the council was limited in the number of youth-led events they could provide due to a lack of money.

"The funding that we receive through the state government to run FReeZa, the more of those we can run, the more engaged we have young people out in community life. So if we can grow the pot of funds, that's always a great outcome for the young people in Ballarat," Cr Hudson said.

Other priority actions outlined from the report include increasing the proportion of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) qualified professionals in the Ballarat labour force from 14 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030. In 2021, this figure sat at 14 per cent.

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Another goal of the strategy is to expand the number of professionally employed artists and allied creatives by a factor of 5 between 2018 and 2030.

From 2021-2022, professional employed artists and allied creatives increased by a factor of 1.2.

The report also highlighted it was not delivering on the amount of Indigenous programming available with a need to increase it by at least seven per cent to reach its desired target of 30 per cent by 2030.

A total of 1348 practitioners were identified in Ballarat and surrounding regions.

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