If you’re doing something creative in Chicago (or aspiring to), I hope you made it out to the 2011 Creative Chicago Expo at the Cultural Center yesterday. But just in case you didn’t, here’s what you missed:

• Me at the Music Industry Workshop booth
• 130 other vendors serving the Chicago creative community, helping with everything from QR codes to media coverage to event space and much more. You can view the complete list of vendors on the Expo’s website (link above).
• A day full of free workshops, with experts talking about marketing yourself, setting up your online presence, copyright & publishing for the music industry, securing media coverage, creating demand for your art and other topics that concern creative folks. CAR should be posting audio recordings of each workshop on its website sometime soon, so you’re in luck if you missed them!
• The chance to meet & network with thousands of Chicago creatives, from musicians to photographers to painters to actors to rappers to producers to dancers and more.

In conclusion…don’t miss next year’s event! Cmon people; it’s free, no excuses.

Also, if you haven’t had a chance to drop by the Chicago Cultural Center, you definitely should (you can even get there via the pedway). Some reasons why:

• Exhibits: the center always has interesting exhibits that you can view for free. There is a really great photography exhibit up now through April 3 titled “Finding Vivian Maier: Street Photographer.” Basically, a few years ago, a real estate guy bought the remains from unclaimed storage lockers in an auction and ended up finding hundreds of thousands of photos and other personal items of this woman Vivian Maier. He tracked down information about who this woman was, and now you can view her photographs on display at the Cultural Center. What a twist of fate…
• The gift shop. Ok, I think we all know I have a thing for gift shops, but the one in the Cultural Center has some very cool Chicago and art items. And also just some random cool stuff.
• The dome (and other architectural elements). Head to the second floor, enter the GAR hall/area and look up: