Straight shooting from 2026's Young Arrows Co-Chairs

The Young Arrows shines a light on the industry's up-and-coming talent and, here, this year's jury Co-Chairs, Love Song MD and EP Shirley O'Connor, and 4Creative ECD David Wigglesworth, talk about the best ways to encourage young people into the industry, the challenges in doing so, and why the Young Arrows has an important role to play. 

Why did you agree to be chairs of the Young Arrows for 2026? 

DW: It’s a pretty simple answer; I love the British Arrows. It’s always been good to me, and I care deeply about the next generation. I feel like we’re in a horrible time right now, for the young ones. I don’t feel like much is being done to seed the way for for them to come up. So, it felt nicely timed because I’ve been stressing about it quite a lot, the path into the industry, but it felt like a nice little start, to try and find ways to look out for who’s next. 

SOC: I think the Arrows is one of the few award ceremonies that we [Love Song] engage with, and the company that we’re running is very focused on trying to find new and diverse voices, and build them up, and I think anything that we can do to help spotlight emerging talent and give them a bit of a leg up is important. I was also just interested to be part of the jury that is going to decide which voices are the ones that are coming through, that are important to highlight, and to ask what a fresh perspective looks like, and what is it that’s new and interesting. 

DW: Also, a little bit shamefully, I didn’t really know too much about Young Arrows because it didn’t exist at the start of my career. I would have absolutely fucking loved to have Young Arrows - that I could enter for free! - when I was coming up. It felt like a nice chance to be able to get a good, hard look at everything that’s going on. It felt like a nice chance to make sure, especially when I heard Shirley was involved as well, that we can find great work, and really celebrate great work. 

SOC: Most awards in this industry are for profit, and one of the main barriers for young people in this industry is financial, right? So, if your company isn’t entering work on your behalf, how are you going to get a spotlight? So, yes, I think, if it wasn’t free, I think I would have thought twice about actually doing it because I just wouldn’t have understood how it would have worked. [Being free] makes it feel like it properly cares about the future of the business.

The free-to-enter Young Arrows is open for entry until Wednesday September 2!

To hear more of what Shirley and David had to say click here to read the full article!