In September 2023, van Jaarsveld got an email from Michael Brown, a co-owner of Sweetgrass Productions, filmmakers known best for their ski movies. The company was working on “The Meaningless Pursuit of Snow,” a Patagonia project that came out in 2023. In the email, Brown told van Jaarsveld that they were in need of some editing help on the film and asked that he come by their office in downtown Salt Lake City.

“As soon as I walked in, I thought, ‘this is sick,’” says Van Jaarsveld. “It’s a big space with a great downtown vibe and a lot of creatives doing great work.”

The offices are called The Confluence. It’s a co-working space started in 2021 by Brown, fellow Sweetgrass co-owner Zac Ramras, and Zeppelin Zeerip, the founder of Field Work Creative, another production company. 

The trio were motivated by many of the same challenges van Jaarsveld faced with remote life. “Zac and I had been working from the top floor of my house and we had a tough time finding a good work/life balance,” says Brown. “We wanted to create a divide between doing dishes and creative work, and we figured there were other people in our community who felt the same way.”

“We envisioned The Confluence as a hotspot for creatives,” says Ramras. “A place where people can come and work but also share ideas and, potentially, get jobs from one another.”

In February 2021, the three men signed a lease on a 4,000-square-foot space in downtown Salt Lake City, then went to work renovating, spending about $20,000 to add a storage room for camera equipment, a photo studio, phone-call booths, desks and chairs, and a conference table. When they opened that fall, they offered space for $300 per month. “We’re not making money off this,” says Zeerip. “We’re seeking to cultivate a community of creatives, and we need to make it affordable for them.”

This year, led by Zeerip, The Confluence began offering bi-monthly workshops called “Coffee and Creatives,” for which Zeerip brings in industry experts to discuss topics ranging from how to develop a pitch deck to how to manage mental health as an independent contractor. 

For his part, van Jaarsveld signed a lease at The Confluence shortly after his first visit. He says his productivity has increased tenfold. The co-working space has also led to job opportunities. “One person who works right next to me is huge in the snowboarding industry and makes product videos for Skullcandy,” he says. “I got a bunch of work making product videos from her, and I’ve gotten work from Zeppelin making hunting videos.”

The Confluence is far from the only shared workspace catering to creatives—which makes sense. As creative work is increasingly executed remotely with independent contractors, there is a need for community and connection in what has been described as a shattered business ecosystem. And it’s not hype to say that freelancing is booming in the creative game. According to a 2021 survey published by Statista, a data collection platform, of the roughly 76 million people who do freelance work in the United States, 77 percent work in art and design. 

In the past decade, spaces like NeueHouse, which operates in Los Angeles and New York, have sprung up, offering unique amenities for freelance creatives, such as podcast studios and a screening room. But it’s the connections that are likely the biggest draw. Creative work, especially for the commissioned stuff, is inherently collaborative. We need to build teams, vet ideas, and network. 

“I think people come to these places for the community,” says Valentina Lara, the marketing manager for Ampersand Studios, a co-working space for creatives that has locations in Miami and Nashville. “You can work from anywhere these days, but people choose to work from spaces like this because they’re surrounded by like-minded individuals and, by nature, people who work in these spaces can help each other in their business endeavors. You might be walking through the hallways and discover that the person you’re chatting with can do social media for you.”

There has also been a surge of popularity in co-working spaces that cater specifically to creatives who work in the outdoor industry. As early as 2013, Megan Michelson, a freelance writer, along with her husband Dan Abrams, one of the co-founders of Flylow, and Mike Rogge, now the owner and editor of Mountain Gazette, started Tahoe Mill Collective, right near the base of what was then Alpine Meadows ski area in California. “I think we were one of the first co-working spaces in a mountain town,” says Michelson. Six people filled the space, all of whom were outdoor creatives. “We weren’t catering to outdoor creatives,” says Michelson. “Those were just the people we knew.” 

The Tahoe Mill Collective was sold in 2021, but it still houses outdoor creatives. “A lot of us like it because we can ski at Alpine Meadows in the morning, then come right into work,” says David Anhalt, who now owns the space. “It’s pretty common to see people working in ski clothes.”

The majority of the photographers and filmmakers who work out of The Confluence are producing content in the outdoor space, which includes ski, bike, boardsports and more. And in Denver, Battery 612, which opened in 2018, is full of creatives who are also part of the broader outdoor industry. “Spyder has worked here and so has First Descents,” says Mike Artz, who is one of the founders and is also co-owner of The Public Works, which does marketing for a number of outdoor brands. “But we also have cabinet makers working here.”

“Recently, one of our tenants reworked the branding for another one of our tenants, who does construction,” says Artz. “We see it all the time. A tenant brings somebody in and tours them around, and then they end up doing business with somebody else in the building.”

That type of connectivity and resulting deal flow matters to independent contractors. And because of that, creative hubs for people working in the outdoor space—and beyond—are thriving. Artz and his partners just added an adjacent 2,200-square-foot building to their already massive 30,000-square-foot workspace, and they’ve also hosted events, including a political discussion with Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper and an appearance by Daymond John, one of the stars of Shark Tank.

Back in Salt Lake, Michael Brown would also like to see The Confluence grow to help support creatives in this new world order of remote and contracted work. “I think we’d love a bigger space that we own,” he says. “We’re trending that way. I think people realize that working in space like this has a huge payoff in terms of a work/life balance and business success.”