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Liverpool impact 08



Liverpool Impact '08: short version

The success has been attributed to gain in profile, leading to better media coverage and an increase in sponsorship to 22,3 Million and 4,1 Million in earned income.

A main gain in longtitude perspective has been the improved capacity to perform with greater intelligence in a modern world of communication and tourism. This means culture was perceived and instrumentalized as an extended form of industry to engage people to attend cultural events while spending on food, hotels, other forms of entertainments.

Liverpool managed to upgrade its conference facilities and become the host of numerous international conferences.
Above all the change in image of Liverpool means to have regained a positive position in the appraisal of cities as not only destinies for visits but also for investments.

The European dimension

Both Stravanger and Liverpool were in 2008 the European Capitals of Culture. [1] Since they are really a show case on behalf of the nation as claimed by Bob Scott, chairman of the selection process in 2010, the claims both cities make in retrospect, that can be re-examined as ongoing reflection in view of some obvious discrepancies between official and other reports.

Both cities claimed that they wanted to do something in the name of not merely local, but European cultures. Still, Stravanger could not really cope in the end with the demand as the promising anthropological dimension did not uphold visitors and tourists alike who came to the city with expectations that could not be fulfilled so easily. The reason for that has to be sought in some of the hidden dimensions of Nordic cultures extending themselves much more into nature than being in reality urban based cultures.

On the other hand, Liverpool, equally a port but not transformed by oil into a rich town like Stravanger, faced for years the down slope of declining shipping industry. There were even calls in the British Parliament to get rid of the burden called Liverpool. Clearly the city had to struggle but in the end it did manage to reinvent itself and thereby attract a lot of people during this one decisive year of 2008.

Still the question remains if the efforts undertaken by both cities were successful in bringing together the local and the European level? Practically it can be doubted that either city succeeded in this even though Liverpool attracted much attention at the time not so much throughout Europe but within the European Commission and Brussels. While Stravanger failed to communicate, Liverpool was most successful at that. It reflects the position of Bob Scott who gives a huge priority to communication.

But it is altogether another question when wishing to know what will let the local setting make its mark over and in time. The city of Liverpool wished to make use this one special year to get out of its own black hole, image wise. Until 2008 the city of the Beatles had been considered as a bleak, run down city with high unemployment and no attractive places to go to. By creating a cultural flag ship down town and by developing the water front, Liverpool used culture to instigate urban renewal as has been the case since Glasgow became European Capital of Culture in 1990. Yet this revamping of the water side came at a huge prize for Europe or to put it in another way, 2008 turned out to be a huge opportunity for consulting companies to set up even fake offices just to benefit from extra EU funds if they could claim to run training programs for setting up new businesses in this down trodden area. What amounts to a financial scam, it shows nevertheless the power of instigation when it comes to making business in and through all kinds of consulting companies. Given the readiness of the EU Commission to believe they are serious about setting up new businesses, that receives readily top priority. Yet to be clear that has nothing to do with promoting a dance studio or artistic work for consulting business is business at best a way to show how things are done without as of yet committing any funds to a real business set-up.

But to come back to overall Liverpool '08, the organisation set up for this special year wished to convey all of this by adopting a new approach, one very much appreciated by those who got bored by the numerous duplicates used by other ECoC candidate and designated cities. Liverpool '08 showed especially through the personality of Bob Scott such a sense for intelligent humour when presenting a seeming cultural plan for the year’s events, that all were taken in. In reality, this seemingly chaotic plan focused but on special areas of the city and left the others on their own.

An original idea but then never implemented was to focus on the Liverpool waterfront in connection with other ports suffering under a similar negative image. The novel idea of Liverpool was to bolster their cultural plan by creating a network with port cities sharing similar problems e.g. a bad image, ruined water front, high unemployment and increasing migrant flux. It was hoped to attain out of exchange of experiences in such a network some model of development which is more compatible with today's specific needs. Unfortunately this idea did not materialise as much as had been wanted from the outset. Specific reasons for this were not given by Bob Scott at the March 23/24th 2010 meeting in Brussels.

Certainly the institution ‘European Capital of Culture’ can give as was this case with Liverpool the 'right reason' to undertake new initiatives. By doing so it can create new platforms from which it is possible to address some specific problems. While it takes place within the own jurisdiction, it does provide equally access to decision makers at the European Union level. The latter factor should not be underestimated when it comes to making use of the designation. It opens up a lot of doors and brings many more people inside the city into international contacts they would never have dreamt of before. The practice of exchange of experience is widely spread within all former, current and future European Capitals of Culture.

Yet a first appraisal of the Liverpool program shows a strong leaning towards entertainment with all the well known spin-offs hoped for more visitors to bring revenue into the city. Basically it meant the aim was to do something which sounded much more orientated towards culture, but the basic fact on how success was establishes is that hotels, night bars, etc. were all filled. Along the additional numbers of tourists which came to Liverpool during that year testifies to this success.Equally all sorts of gimmick products with the logo of Liverpool follow the business model of every big museum which knows the gift shop is a crucial source of income.

This commercial drive towards success meant a functional use of culture was made wherever possible. At no time, it seemed clear that aside from this commercial drive, that it would be important to bring together European cultures or to add something specific from Liverpool to the cultural diversity within Europe. As a matter of fact, nothing resembling even close the making of European cultures started to exist within Liverpool during that year of 2008. This failure means Liverpool '08 was designed to be a show case of what can be done with this institution to gain money while the gains in cultural terms are much harder to define, let alone claim that some substantial contribution had been made in this direction.

Two points can be made here:

1) In terms of content and cultural programming the bringing together of different cultures would involve not only people in general, but more specifically artists and cultural workers. Aside from learning to work together - individual exhibitions very different from group exhibitions - there would have to take place discussions and even policy formulations. Above all the experiences of artists and cultural workers would need to be validated in the European context. That includes evaluating what can and does affect EU cultural policy and above all the funding of the arts.

2) Any evaluation as to the impact of such a big event has to recognize that there shall be negative side effects. Already in view of London holding the Olympics in 2012, it is noticable that preparations for the Olympics in 2012 mean just one thing: massive cut backs in budgets for all the arts and cultural events. Equally there have been incurred cut backs in spending for related activities such as design of museums and exhibitions.

Most measures taken by cities when it comes to doing something with the arts and/or for culture, they are still a far cry away from cultural planning. The latter can only to be successful if it lets citizens enter the planning process and thereby become creative in public spaces. By contrast, if only brand names of culture count such as the Beatles or the Tate Modern, then the year of being European Capital of Culture will reproduce the already well known and shall miss out the chance of giving recognition to other contributions to European cultures. Good practice gives a chance to people to learn how to use cultural planning, in order to prepare for the future and this in anticipation of things still to come.

[1] http://www.liverpool.com/

Liverpool Impact ’08: longer version

As to the impacts of 08 the research programme aiming to find out exactly as to what shaped this one year, this was presented at the 25 year celebration of European Capitals of Culture in Brussels March 23 - 24, 2010 by Beatriz Gracia. Her entire approach and proposal can be summed up by an attempt to 'put numbers into context', since number of visitors alone cannot tell the whole story of this one year experience Liverpool underwent when European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Emphasis was given to following research / cultural policy areas:

As to putting numbers into context, there are some crucial correlations (associative fields) to be identified:

Access & participation  - relates to and is relative to inclusion, outreach, diversity

Cultural vibrancy - has a lot to do with image & perception (media coverage and people's views)

Economy and tourism - a double strang: one dealing with governance and delivery, the other with aims, objectives and policy strategies deployed to realize these ambitious goals

Re-imagining the city's programme for the entire year (before, during and after) as this has to do with

 

The question with regards to this novel research conception is whether or not too much focus was on image related factors i.e. what would give rise to a change in the image of the city of Liverpool. Since this was a prime target behind the concept and programme, namely to get away from being an ugly port and a downgraded city in the UK and to become a city with future, it does not surprise that emphasis is given to a certain success story which validates both expectations and brings this claim of success in line with what was really achieved. Apparent is that no attempt was made to research into what changes in cultural terms took place during this year. Practically this approach fits into the kind of development approach linked to what Bob Palmer would call the making of the cultural industry as striving part of the economy.

Report:

"Creating an impact: Liverpool's experience as European Capital of Culture"

The impacts 08 research programme - a joint project of the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University - started already the moment the city of Liverpool won the ECOC title in 2005. Thus the research covers the years leading up to 2008, the year itself and what has manifested itself since then. The report under the title: 'Creating an impact: Liverpool's experience as European Capital of Culture' covers thus 5 years altogether. It was commissioned by Liverpool City Council for the period 2005 to 2010.

The final report of Impacts 08 differentiates between short-term and long-term impacts.

Short-term impacts:
  • A wide range of cultural events and audiences;
  • An image renaissance locally, nationally and internationally;
  • Rising levels of confidence across the city, especially in the areas of culture and tourism;
  • Culture is more widely accepted as a driver for economic change, health and social inclusion.
Long-term impacts
  • A strong relationship and cooperation between different sectors and partners
  • Streamlining of governance

 

Contact info:

Impacts 08, University of Liverpool
Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South
L69 7ZA Liverpool
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)151 794 2988
Fax: +44 (0)151 794 2997
impacts08@liverpool.ac.uk
www.impacts08.net
Beatriz García (Director of Impacts 08),
tel. +44 (0)151 794 2540
Researchers: Beatriz Garcia, Ruth Melville & Tamsin Cox

Links:

Visit the website of the Impacts 08 research programme

Download the report 'Creating an impact: Liverpool's experience as European Capital of Culture' (PDF, Eng, 2.30 MB)


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