Agenda item

            The Committee considered the following report, together with a presentation which outlined the Strategic Case for Belfast 2024.

 

“1.0      Purpose of Report

 

1.1             The purpose of this report is to set out:

 

-       Strategic case, concept and creative developments for Belfast 2024 – our ambitious year of cultural and creative celebration for Belfast including updates on brand and programme development and civic engagement approach.

 

2.0       Recommendations

 

2.1       The Committee is asked to:

 

            Note the content of this report and the summary of the strategic case and developments for delivery for Belfast 2024, and current approach and budget allocation for delivering St Patrick’s Day for 2023.

 

3.0       Main report

 

3.1       Belfast 2024

 

            Belfast 2024 is a year-long celebration of home-grown culture featuring new and exciting events, theatre, music, and art developed through new co-design and partnership models with the city stakeholders, the creative sector and the citizens of Belfast. The year delivers on the aims of the City Council’s Cultural and Tourism strategies, Belfast Agenda, Bolder Vision and City Centre Regeneration and Investment Strategy. All founded in a belief and a commitment from Council that culture, sustainability, collaboration, partnership and people should be at the heart of the city’s Development to:

 

-       Work towards Belfast becoming a more ‘attractive’ place to live and work

-       Addressing city dereliction, by increasing vibrancy and civic pride

-       Recognise the Climate Crisis, develop awareness & change cultural behaviours

-       Re-activate Belfast’s Tourism Sector and develop our Cultural Tourism offer

-       Deliver a distinct portfolio of city events connected to citizens and attracting international visitors promoting Belfast as a world-class cultural destination

 

3.2       Strategic Case for Belfast 2024

 

            The Belfast Agenda provides a long-term framework for how community planning partners will work collaboratively to deliver an ambitious and inclusive vision that will create a better quality of life for all citizens in Belfast. Catalysed by the European Capital of Culture Bid development in 2017, which involved the largest and most significant public engagement programme Council has undertaken to date, Council has been undergoing significant strategic development in Culture & Tourism. The results of which are 3 new strategies for the city – A City Imagining Cultural Strategy, Make Yourself at Home Tourism Plan and Music Matters Roadmap - putting creativity, and the people of this city, at the heart of Belfast’s development and growth opportunities.

 

            A City Imagining launched in April 2020, has been developed with the people of Belfast and places culture and creativity at the heart of civic development. Outward-looking, forward-facing, innovative and inclusive, the strategy is supported by an Investment Model and an Implementation Plan that proposes a new partnership approach to funding and actions, and aims to:

 

-       Support the cultural life of the city by enabling our people to be active, dynamic

-       and creative agents of change

-       Invest in our cultural and creative sectors to develop the skills and capacity for

-       production and innovation

-       Position Belfast as an international testing ground for new approaches to cultural

-       engagement, development and placemaking

-       Establish Belfast as a cultural destination

 

            Belfast 2024 is a core strategic aim of the cultural strategy and will directly deliver on the above ambitions. Belfast 2024 is a core ambition that will deliver on the priorities outlined in The Belfast Agenda which sets an ambition to be a culturally vibrant city; A City Imagining Belfast City Council’s 10-year cultural strategy; The Bolder Vision city-centre regeneration strategy and Resilient Belfast, the city’s resilience aspirations and vision of what and where we want to be as a city.  Belfast 2024 will also target all four strategic themes in the Make Yourself at Home Tourism Plan, including Growth, Position (in tourist markets), Sustainable Tourism and the overall experience. As a member of the Agenda for Culture 2021 Council will ensure the programme for 2024 will also seek to align to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Based on these strategic priorities and goals, there is hopes of creating memorable and interactive spaces and moments across the city which will be critical to ensuring locals reconnect with their city and visitors are drawn in from outside of Belfast.

 

3.3       Benefits for Cities of Culture

 

            City of Culture events – both European Capital of Culture and UK City of Culture designations, have played a key role in the development of several cities across the UK and Ireland. These events and programmes have held to increase the visibility or these cities bringing significant tourism as well as helping cultural development, which otherwise may not have occurred.

 

            The city of culture designation has also provided significant opportunity to promote civic integration and overall regeneration for the delivering cities boosting prosperity, civic pride and placemaking.

 

            Hull was designated UK City of Culture in 2017, a city of similar size and make up as Belfast with a shared industrial past has seen significant transformation in the last 5 years catalysed by their year of cultural celebration. Their 2017 programme for culture delivered:

 

-       £178.1m in Day Visitor Spend and £61m in Overnight Visitor Spend; £20m and £3.1m more than in 2016, respectively.

-       Increased the value of tourism from £285m in 2016 to £313m in 2017.

-       Delivered 6.2m total volume of visits, 548,600 more than 2016.

-       Created 589 total actual tourism jobs.

-       £500m invested due to the City of Culture 2017

-       Celebrations created £450m worth of advertising and media coverage

 

            More recently Coventry was awarded the UK City of Culture title in 2021, and despite major disruption to their plans brought on by the pandemic they still:

 

-       Created 1,486 jobs.

-       Generated £51.2m gross GVA.

-       Secured £172.6m in investment as a direct result of the City of Culture 2021.

-       320,000 visitors recorded, of which 213,555 tracked through ticketed events.

 

3.4       The impact for Belfast

 

            Delivering on our own year of cultural celebration in 2024 will have transformational change for Belfast – the impacts of which will be felt across the cultural, tourism and hospitality sectors directly but also at a wider civic and international level and bring about lasting legacy for the city as a place and for its people.

 

            The priorities of the city’s cultural strategy, reinforced by the new tourism plan, will facilitate the creativity, capacity building and energy that is required in the lead up to this celebration and beyond. Our vision for the year is to create a legacy of better understanding our identity, our relationships with each other and our place in the world.

 

            Belfast is different.  Our history, our culture, our music, our industrial heritage, even our sense of humour all set us apart from other cities.  So too does how our city has developed over recent decades and the challenges we face in the future development of Belfast.

 

            Climate: If Belfast can transition to low carbon (or net zero carbon) economy in the next thirty years, and do it in an equitable way, it will secure its long-term future. If it does not, it will spend much more on disaster recovery, it will fail to meet its Belfast Agenda priorities and worse still, it could ultimately become a smaller, poorer city.

 

            Vibrancy: At present, Belfast’s vacant unit rate is 22.2%, which is 4.7% above the NI average and 9.5% above the UK average (Belfast City Centre Management Vacant Units Report). In order for Belfast to be a vibrant and safe place to live, residents must be provided with an opportunity to lead engaged and fulfilled lives and surrounded by bustling, energetic high streets.

 

            Culture and arts: Government investment in the arts has fallen by 30% over the last decade, and is currently lower than the UK and Republic of Ireland average (Arts Council NI). A resilient city is a culturally vibrant city. One which values culture and its role. Ensuring the city can tackle intractable problems and adapt to future challenges will require a significant expansion of the creative sector.

 

            Belfast 2024 can play a significant role in building a cohesive ‘bolder’ Belfast by delivering a major year of creativity focusing on the themes of our people, our place and our planet which will humanise city challenges through thought provoking moments and compelling experiences, changing mindsets and releasing new meanings, paving our way into a culturally vibrant and resilient city of the future.

 

            Belfast 2024 will contribute to the long-term vision for the city to become one of the world’s greatest urban transformations; germinating an ecosystem of social, cultural, environmental, and economic initiatives that will catalyse new ideas, enterprise, skills, well-being, leisure, education, play and curiosity.

 

            Through Belfast 2024 we aim to deliver:

 

                        £9m investment in creative and place-based programmes across Belfast in 2024 including:

 

-       £2.5m directly to creative and cultural sector commissioning

-       £1.5m directly to re-imagining and raising ambition of our city’s signature events

-       £2m to co-commissioned spectacle programmes with Dublin City Council & Bradford 2025

-       £1m directly to civic based programmes led by co-design & engagement

-       £1m to an ambitious, engaging and powerful Marcomms plan delivered with partners

-       £1m to production crew, volunteering programmes and direct events delivery

-       6 signature events headlining the year inc St Patrick’s Day, Maritime Festival & Christmas

-       If successful with bidding hosting The Fleadh Ceoil

-       80 home-grown festivals delivering on 2024 themes

-       Up to 70 brand new events commissioned by Council co-designed with the city

-       500 artist contracts

-       300 trained volunteers

-       50 citywide and neighbourhood events and programmes

-       10 international artist exchanges

-       14 artists in residence

-       10 national and international collaborations

 

            Belfast City Council will continue to host a number of landmark international projects in the lead up to 2024 in such as UNBOXED 2022, where the Northern Irish commission – Our Place in Space – is now in Liverpool, and has been one of the most successful and well-received of all UNBOXED projects and will find a permanent home with National Museums NI in 2023.

 

3.5       Belfast beyond the Good Friday Agreement

 

            2023 also marks the 25 year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a moment in time to mark the next chapter for our country, and Belfast’s future, a welcome time to host One Young World, the most significant global youth leadership conference focused on platforming, developing and inspiring the future leaders of the world. As begin a new chapter for our country, and our city, and build towards delivering Belfast 2024 the focus will be on catalysing a new future for our city, where we imagine where we will be in 25 years time from now, a new, greener, more inclusive, connected and creative city.

 

3.6       Recognising the crisis in the cultural sector

 

            Delivery of our ambitious year of cultural celebration in 2024 is needed more than ever as our city recovers from the pandemic whilst also facing unprecedented economic pressures in the current financial climate. We recognise the profound socio-economic impacts of the pandemic across the city, especially for the culture and arts sector. 

 

·        The Lyric Theatre, NI’s landmark Producing Theatre are projecting energy bills of £240k in 2022-23 - an increase of almost 2.5 times the costs pre-Covid and almost £90k within the last year alone.

·        Belfast Children’s Festival, a CMAG Imagine Festival, have had the service charge for their premises has increased by 43% without any prior warning and is now higher

·        than their rent.

·        There is reduced well-being as a result of increased cost of living/static salaries

·        There is poor mental health as a result of reduced opportunities for delivery and local provision

·        There is a talent exodus – people are leaving the sector or choosing to join other sectors due to better terms and conditions and greater job-security.

·        There is a barrier to developing high quality partnerships with ROI/GB/Europe as the sector are increasingly misaligned in terms of resource and increasing prices and the long-term impact of lower investment and on-going issues brought about by Brexit

 

            Council’s Culture Team have been pivoting our programmes and to help recover and build the capacity of our cultural sector whilst maintaining our commitment to a year of cultural celebration in our city, originally planned for 2023 this will now take place in 2024 recognising the impact on the city’s capacity to deliver on this ambition post-pandemic. 

 

            Creative collaboration will be at the heart of Belfast’s recovery ensuring that we can build back better – across culture, tourism and hospitality - leaving a lasting legacy for these sectors, as well as the people of the city. While the full impact of Covid-19 and our current economic crisis is as yet unknown, what is clear is that recovery will require determination and genuine partnership working as well as creative and innovative approaches to our city’s future development.

 

            In continuing to deliver our home-grown year of cultural celebration in 2024 we will build much needed capacity and ambition in our creative sector whilst delivering on our strategic priorities for civic participation in cultural development as well as placing Belfast on the map internationally as a culturally vibrant destination. 

 

3.7       Belfast 2024 Guiding Principles - our people, our place, our planet

 

            People & Place are at the heart of our cultural strategy A City Imagining and our tourism plan Make Yourself at Home. Placemaking is a people-centred approach to delivering a local and shared vision. People shape places. Culturally vibrant cities are places where people negotiate their sense of belonging and where the private sphere connects to the public.

 

            Local government is ideally positioned when it comes to placemaking, with an ability to connect with and bring together a diverse range of people and sectors across the city. It is in this role that Council must show leadership and Belfast 2024 is a manifestation of this vision for putting people and place at the heart of what we do. We also recognise the need to focus on our role as facilitators, strengthening collaborations between sectors and silos in this city, using creativity and the ambitions of 2024 as our vehicle.

 

            People & Place are therefore at the core of our guiding Principles which all work commissioned under the 2024 banner will follow: Collaboration and Co-design, New work, Our Shared Planet, Future thinking and Public space.

 

3.8       Belfast 2024 Signature Events

 

            Despite the richness of Belfast’s cultural offer and a number of significant successes in recent years, the city has not yet established itself as a truly global events destination. What the city has demonstrated with the A City Imagining strategy and Make Yourself at Home Tourism plan is the potential to be different, authentic and distinctly Belfast. Events can challenge and articulate a city’s diverse identity and personality, a core theme in our cultural strategy.

 

            Council’s culture team have been working with the city and the sector to design a new approach to developing and delivering Belfast’s events and festivals, which will come to fruition as core events in our Belfast 2024 programme – namely new approaches, engaging local and international creatives, to delivering St Patrick’s Day and Maritime Festival, placing Belfast on the map for offering a distinct experience for these traditional calendar events. We will also continue to work closely with our four Imagine Festivals – Belfast Children’s Festival, NI Science Festival, Feile and Mela – to raise their ambition in 2024 with regards to vision, content and collaboration resulting in a distinct core of signature events as pillars throughout our 2024 programme which will have legacy beyond the year itself.

 

3.9       Belfast 2024 Signature Partners

 

            Successful cities of culture have shown that investment in homegrown talent has long-term and measurable impacts. It is also recognised that to develop local talent, and importantly raise their ambition, our creative sector needs to be inspired by and work in collaboration with international creative and cultural partners on a long-term and meaningful basis to raise the bar locally as well as garnering Belfast’s reputation as a cultural and global destination.

 

            Belfast 2024 will seek to anchor at least three significant international partnerships to deliver on this vision for the year. Importantly these partners will work in collaboration with our civic and creative sectors to co-design their contributions to the programming for 2024, working together with our city in leaving a lasting legacy and developing long-term relationships with globally recognised creative and cultural brands.

 

3.10      Our Open Call to the city

 

            It is imperative that Belfast 2024’s ambitious programme is to be created by and for the people of Belfast - the residents and workers of the city, the artists and creatives of the city, the cultural and non-cultural organisations of the city coming together with people of all ages and from all backgrounds to collaborate and create with us for 2024.

 

            In November Council will launch its first Open Call for ideas via a new procurement model shaped on a Design Contest which gathers ideas at a high level and most importantly provides a vehicle seed-funding for ideas to be developed to full feasibility stage before being submitted for commissioning. We will ask the civic and creative sectors across our city to share with us ideas they want to develop for this year of creativity, to ensure we create and build this programme together. Council is particularly looking for ideas that will involve new ways of working through innovative processes, collaborations and co-design. They may evolve into new ways of delivering on our city events, such as Christmas, or new processes in engaging citizens in cultural activity from having a role as co-creators to learning new skills and even performing. We want to support new, ambitious ideas and initiatives that are about bringing people together to create new connections and collaborations, to think and work in new ways through creativity and imagination. We will support this process of ideation through a two-stage submission, giving time and seed-funding to develop ideas to full feasibility to lead to full commissioning beginning in May 2023. Successful commission teams will work closely with Council’s Culture and 2024 team to develop their ideas into projects, events and programmes with a view to delivering these bespoke cultural activities throughout Belfast in 2024.

 

3.11      Platforming Belfast’s up and coming talent

 

            Belfast 2024 will provide a vital platform to celebrate some of our most successful and contemporary up and coming artists who are from Belfast and Northern Ireland.

 

            Many Northern Irish artists have recently gained recognition at a national and international level, winning Emmy Awards in music as well as the coveted Turner Prize for visual arts. Platforming these artists in 2024 will provide local gravitas for Belfast 2024, raising our visibility and reputation globally as well as inspirating for younger generations from Northern Ireland who want to explore, and achieve a successful, career in the creative arts in this country

 

3.12      Timeline for Commissioning Belfast 2024 Programme

 

            Stage 1 Nov 22:  Idea Open Call launches/ developing signature partnerships

            Stage 2 Mar 23:  Seed funding for feasibility studies for ideas

            Stage 3 Apr  23:  Feasibility submissions.  Successful Belfast 2024 Commissions contracted

            Stage 4 Apr+ 23: Development in partnership w/ Council’s 2024 team

            Stage 5 2024:       Delivery throughout the city in 2024

 

3.13      Belfast 204 Brand Development

 

            Council’s Culture and Comms teams have been working in collaboration with McCadden to develop a stand alone brand for our year of cultural celebration in 2024, recognising we are not a UK City of Culture, nor a European Capital of Culture, but that this year is about us, and our collective ambitions for our city to celebrate our creativity and be seen as a truly culturally vibrant city and global destination and therefore this year needs a distinctive brand that everyone across the city can engage with, adopt, adapt and have ownership of. The result of which is the name Belfast 2024, with a distinct, contemporary and fun suite of design assets that are flexible and adaptable which can be used to gather momentum throughout 2023 and promote events throughout 2024 across the city in various media and platforms.

 

            Learning from other cities of culture, who have delivered projects of this scale and above such as Hull, Leeds and Liverpool, the importance of Marcomms for Belfast 2024 cannot be underestimated. Council’s Culture and Comms teams are currently working up a full Marcomms plan for Belfast 2024 in partnership with key stakeholders such as Tourism Northern Ireland and Visit Belfast.

 

3.14      Civic Engagement & Co-design

 

            A new approach to civic cultural engagement is being developed for Belfast 2024.

 

            Rather than having a traditional audience role, citizens across Belfast will be invited and supported to co-create and participate in this year-long creative programme with Belfast City Council and the creative and cultural sector. Together we will co-design events, experiences and initiatives that empower people’s creativity and increase our capacity to express and nurture it – in our city, neighbourhoods and lives. We will open opportunities for citizens to connect over their interests and explore what creativity means to them, encouraging ambition across the city for our citizens to try something for the first time or take their cherished creative pursuits even further.

 

            To achieve this, we are developing new processes in areas such as procurement, communications, government and in our cross-departmental and cross-sectoral working.

 

            We are putting civic participation at the heart of Belfast 2024, so citizens see themselves and their creativity reflected in this programme.

 

3.15      Updates on St Patrick’s Day 2023

 

            Members are reminded that £240,000 was approved previously by Committee in April 2022 for the St Patrick’s Day 2023 event.

 

            Approval is now requested to allocate an additional £90,000 from existing council and departmental budgets as follows:

 

April Committee Allocation	£240,000
Additional  Council Allocation	£90,000
Total Budget	£330,000

 

            Additional budget will uplift  the event through building ongoing momentum towards the plans for a year of cultural celebration in 2024, as well as bid activities associated with Fleadh Cheoil. This will include:

 

·        Additional programming elements including Ards Comhaltas Branch (key Fleadh Cheoil partner)

·        Enhancing the visitor experience and increasing event dwell time within city centre

·        Future-proofing the event in respect of delivery structure and stakeholder engagement models

 

            This will increase the Council’s investment in St Patrick’s Day to £330,000.

 

3.16      Financial and Resource Implications 

 

            £90,000 requested for allocation to delivery of St Patrick’s Day in 2023. As laid out above these monies are within existing departmental budgets agreed by Committee in March 2022 for the purpose of delivering city events.

 

            £1.85million to cover the 2024 Open Call process launching later in November has been approved by CMT & SP&R in October 2022, this is allocated from the cultural reserve budget for 2024 development and delivery.

 

3.17      Equality or Good Relations Implications/

            Rural Needs Assessment 

 

            The cultural strategy, A City Imagining, which included the strategic ambitions of 2024, has been subject to an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) and a Rural Needs Assessment (RNA).”

 

During discussion, the Director of Economic Development described the intended legacy of Belfast 2024 and highlighted the need to increase participation, funding and resources for the Arts Sector. He also explained further the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

 

The Director of Economic Development advised that a Workshop would be organised in the new year to provide further details of the developing plans for Belfast 2024.

 

The Committee:

 

·        noted the contents of the report and the summary of the strategic case and developments for delivery for Belfast 2024;

·        noted the current approach and budget allocation for delivering St Patrick’s Day for 2023; and

·        Noted that a Belfast 2024 Workshop would be organised in early 2023.