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A Christmas cracker for
culture!
A special report into Liverpool's 2017
cultural programme has revealed it attracted more than 1 million visitors to
the City and boosted the local economy by a whopping ₤36.4m. An 'End of
Year Report' will be presented to the Culture and Tourism Select
Committee in January, and analyses the work of the City Council's Culture
Liverpool department which is responsible for staging events, along with the
operation of St George's Hall, the Town Hall, Liverpool Cruise Terminal and
Liverpool Film Office.
The events alone generated ₤18.2million, and the report found the key event
highlights for 2017 were:-
► Sgt Pepper at 50 - This was a unique
festival which resulted in 13 brand new commissions influenced by each track on
the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. From the 25 May to 16 June,
renowned artists from across the globe worked in partnership with home grown
talent to stage a mixture of intimate and large-scale events at locations
including Woolton's Camp Hill, Liverpool Royal Court and Aintree Racecourse. In
total, 140,000 attended the 13 events, 7,371 people participated in the project
and the economic impact of the project was nearly ₤781,000. It is regarded as 1
of the City's most successful event related PR campaigns of the year, with more
than 860 pieces of coverage which include three separate articles in the New
York Times as well as pieces in:- The Australian, Harpers Bazaar Brazil, The
Asian Age and Holland Sentinel. The
website alone attracted 360,000 visitors,
reaching 7.7m on Facebook and 2.2m Twitter impressions. Due to the success of
the 2 week programme, Culture Liverpool was asked to showcase seven of the
commissions at Festival No. 6 where it received rave reviews. Actress Brodie
Arthur, who took the lead in the She's Leaving Home play; earning her critical
acclaim; now has a national agent on the back of the coverage, and 'A Day
in the Life' film won the Short Fiction award at the London Labour Film
Festival last month.
► Armed Forces Day / Mersey River Festival...
More than 320,000 people attended the joint National Armed Forces Day
celebrations and the annual Mersey River Festival which took place 24 to 25
June. Liverpool was the national focus for the celebrations and the Saturday
consisted of parades, fly pasts, demonstrations and naval vessels which were
open to the public; the Iron Duke alone attracted 5,000 visitors. It was
attended by the Prime Minister, HRH Prince Edward, the Secretary of Defence and
the 1st Sea Lord. The River Festival included visiting:- Tall Ships, the
international canoe polo tournament, jet skiing demonstrations, street theatre,
air displays and the Northern Boat Show. Liverpool teamed up with Wirral on the
River Festival event, with 40,000 people enjoying all the activities on offer on
the Wirral side. The weekend brought in around ₤7.7m to the City, and ₤360,000
to Wirral, generated extensive local and national media coverage and reached
more than 400,000 people on Facebook and more than 2m on Twitter.
See our coverage by clicking on
here.
► Liverpool International Music Festival (LIMF)
- Taking place 21 July to 23 July, 100,000 music lovers descended on Sefton Park
to enjoy the Summer Jam element of the festival whish saw more than 350
performances across the main stage, itsLiverpool stage and the Academy stage.
Acts included Gorgan City, Naughty Boy, Cast, Corinne Bailey Rae as well as a
world premiere of Garage Classical which saw a 45 piece orchestra perform garage
hits with original vocalists. A brand new VIP area generated 1,100 ticket sales
and the overall economic impact of Summer Jam was ₤1.15m. Once again, the event
proved popular with the media, generating 476 pieces of coverage with an
equivalent advertising reach of ₤950,000. Over the LIMF weekend there were
325,000 impressions on Twitter; double those of 2016. See our coverage by
clicking on
here.
► Clipper Around the World Race Start...
Drawing crowds of around 220,000, this week long event in August brought in
₤7.5m to the local economy as 12 Clipper vessels took over the Albert Dock. See
our coverage by clicking on
here.
► River Of Light... The firework spectacular
returned to both sides of the Mersey, on 5 November. Pre-show entertainment
ensured the 110,000, strong crowd (in both Liverpool and Wirral) were more than
ready to see the main show created by 1 of the UK's most successful firework
companies; Titanium Fireworks. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and the
economic impact for both sides pf the River was more than ₤1.5m. The following
morning, national BBC breakfast reported that 'Liverpool won bonfire
night.' See our coverage by clicking on
here.
► Remembrance Sunday... This years' service
took place, on Sunday, 12 November 2017, and attracted around 17,000 to the area
around St George's Hall cenotaph. As the event focused on Passchendaele and the
role of horses in the 1st World War, the National Theatre allowed:-
'Joey' the main puppet from the production:- 'War Horse'
to be part of the ceremony. National coverage was secured and more than 100,000
people were reached on both Twitter and Facebook.
When looking at the other areas Culture Liverpool covers, the report shows:-
► Liverpool Cruise Terminal - The team welcomed
more than 100,000 passengers and crew, attracted around 50,000 spectators to the
waterfront during ship visits and generated an economic impact of ₤7m. In 2017
the terminal celebrated its tenth anniversary with a programme of events
including quayside sail away concerts, firework displays and the Disney themed
'Magic on the Mersey' which brought in 30,000 visitors to the
waterfront and ₤250,000 to the local economy. To mark the British Open Golf
Championship, the ships Azamara Journey and Celebrity Silhouette both berthed on
the Mersey at the same time, attracting 45,000 people to the quayside and
bringing a boost of ₤450,000.
► Liverpool Film Office - The Film Office has
recorded its most successful year to date and continues to attract high end TV
dramas and feature films to Liverpool. There have been 289 film and TV projects
made in 2017, with 1,352 film days generating around ₤11.1m of inward
investment. Production highlights include:- 'Tolkien' starring
Nicholas Hoult, the return of 'Peaky Blinders' and ITV's
'Timewasters.' The team is also part of the campaign to bring Channel 4
to Liverpool.
► Tourist Information Centres (TIC's) - More
than 80,000 visitors headed to the Albert Dock and John Lennon Airport TICs for
advice on how to get around the City, tickets to attractions, help with
accommodation and to buy souvenirs. The team proactively set up pop-up TIC's at
major events and located themselves at the Cruise Liner Terminal when ships are
berthed in the City. This generated ₤150,000. External organisations are also
now approaching the TICs to have a presence at events, such as the opening of
the new Mersey Gateway Bridge which opened in October.
In terms of supporting the wider culture sector in Liverpool, this latest
information shows:- 36 organisations received funding totalling ₤2.9m per
annum via the Culture Liverpool Investment Programme in 2017/17 and 2017/18 -
these included the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Unity Theatre, Tate
Liverpool, Pride and Writing on the Wall. The funding provided by the City
Council safeguarded 1,300 jobs and allowed the organisations to raise another
₤28m. It is estimated that for every ₤1 invested in the cultural sector, ₤10 is
brought back into the City.
Assistant Mayor and Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Events, Councillor
Wendy Simon, said:- "This has been a stellar year for culture in the City
and I'm hugely proud of the quality and diversity of the 2017 offer.
Sometimes it can be easy to take for granted the incredible events which take
place, some of them for free, on our doorsteps. You'd be hard pushed to find
many other cities in the UK, or even Europe, who annually invest in this sector
and ensure that people of all ages can access and experience the arts in some
form. It has been one of our busiest years since 2008 and I know some of the
events will live-long in thousands of people's memories; whether it was the
incredible firework spectacular at Camp Hill as part of Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds, seeing those beautiful Clipper vessels line the Mersey or standing in
the beautiful surroundings of Sefton Park singing along to some of the best live
music around. This report puts us in good stead as we look ahead to 2018 when we
celebrate the City's already thriving cultural scene, and also throw a few brand
new events in for good measure! I'd like to congratulate everyone involved
in this unforgettable year; from those in Culture Liverpool and other City
Council departments, right through to our partners across the City and of course
our arts organisations which continue to deliver programmes that keeps Liverpool
on an enviable cultural pedestal."
The full Council report will be available to view in full, on Monday, 8 January 2018,
at:-
CultureLiverpool.Co.UK and on Mersey Reporter's Event Listings
Page. If you want to see what happened within the Liverpool
City Region
over 2017, why not take a look at our
archive or read our report in this edition
called:- "2017 - The Year in Review" via clicking on
here now. |
