Events are developing and rising all around the world and are seen to have vital cultural, economic and social effects on the host city. However, regularly, the host cities invest most of their efforts on funding of events, with a little attention given to evaluate the impacts of event on residents’ quality of life (QoL). Cultural events, with the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) for instance, have emerged as a means of improving the QoL of host cities in Europe (Liu, 2019).
The author has chosen Liverpool for the case study as he has lived, worked and study there for 4 years. Liverpool with population of 439,000 and the surrounding city region (population 1.5m) was a huge global port benefiting from international trade in salt, raw materials and also slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries in the past (Wikls-Heeg, 2003). In 1950 onward, Liverpool two famous football clubs achieves success in Europe and internationally. Liverpool has been a leader of popular culture(1969s) and was affected by industrial decline in late 20th century, also experienced economic and social deprivation, high level of crime, national recession, high unemployment, low skill work, poor education and poor health cares in 1980. In the 20th century Liverpool benefited from the establishment of University of Liverpool, the Liverpool Philharmonic society, the Walker Art gallery and many gardens and parks around the city (Localwiki.org, 2019).
One of the most historical places in Liverpool is Albert Dock which opened in 1846 and the waterfront was declared as World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2004 (Centre, 2019) and nowadays the Albert Dock has been revamped into shops, cafes and bars as a tourism attraction that attracts over 4 million visitors a year (Liverpool Express, 2019). The Merseyside Maritime Museum is the first public building that opens in the Albert Dock which, was a warehouse used to store tea, sugar and spirits (Albertdock.com, 2019). Liverpool became the European City of Culture in 2008, investing in culture to regenerate urban and regional economies, using culture as a catalyst from service to knowledge economies and hosting major events, city gathering and iconic infrastructures (News.bbc.co.uk, 2019).
The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) can be two types of events, while it is similar to large scale international cultural festivals because of the programming steps, but it can be mega event as well. ECoC can take place one full year or just one of event as each city can holds the event only one time (Langen and Garcia, 2009). Liverpool become the European Capital of Culture in 2008 to create and present the best of local, national and international art and events in all genres as well as building community enthusiasm, creativity and participation (The Independent, 2019). Technologically Liverpool regeneration attracted media attention to the city because of the events that are running within the city. Economically Liverpool benefited from inward investment, job creation and tourism growth after the regeneration.
Liverpool hosts events like conferences, festivals and concerts, in Liverpool Arena and Convention center, for instance:
- Art, music and cultural events
- British style collective
- 50 summer of love 2017
- Liverpool International Music Festival
- International Beatles week
- International Business Festival
European City of Culture impacts
Economic impact
Aims:
- To increase the levels of visitors and trends
- Inward investment, job creation, tourism growth
Findings:
- Greater local business confidence
- 9.7m additional visits to Liverpool
- Additional direct visitor spends of £753.8 million across Liverpool, Merseyside and North West
- 34% growth in visitors since 2007
- Building of additional hotels nights in Liverpool
- Additional 1.14 million staying visitor night in Liverpool hotels
- 2.6 international visitors (European and global visit)
- New retailers came to the city; Debenhams, Victoria`s secret
- Increasing of investment from public and private segments also national and European funding
- Decreasing of the crime rate faster than the national average
Social impact
Aims
- Inclusion, access participation
- To build community enthusiasm, creativity and participation
- To encourage and increase participation in cultural activity by from communities
Findings
- 60% of residents attend at least one ECoC event
- Over 4,000 registered volunteers and 1,000 actives
- Above average ethnic minorities, lower socio-eco groups and young people attend ECoC events
Environmental impact
Aims
- Infrastructure, renewal, public space and green agenda
Findings
- New Anfield stadium
- Rebuilding of the Museum of Liverpool Life
- After the race riots in 1981 the Mersey development corporation created housing and new jobs created in the city
- 19th century shops and cafes has been built in Albert Dock to attract tourists and opened in 1988
- New Everton stadium
- £920million for building new public spaces, gardens and park that connects the shopping area including Liverpool one shopping Centre to Albert Dock and waterfront
- New terminal and expanding of landing stages will allow largest cruises to pass or land in Liverpool.
- Rebuilding of Lime Street Gateway with new 27 stores for retail and offices
- Mersey Ferry terminal
- Airport Expansion, Port expansion
- Liverpool to London and Liverpool to Manchester railway line
Cultural impact
Aims
- Confidence, aspirations, reimaging, rebranding and identity
- To positively reposition Liverpool to a national and international audience
- To reposition Liverpool as a world class city by 2008
- To develop greater recognition nationally and internationally for the role of arts and culture in making Liverpool better place to live, work and visit
Findings
- New local cultural networks attracting multimillion national grants
- Greater awareness of Liverpool`s contemporary cultural offer, beyond football and Beatles
- Over 70% of European Capital of Culture artists and contributors are locally based
All the figure and numbers generated from (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019)
Technological impact of ECoC on Liverpool was the press media coverage and received %90 positive or neutral coverage and reimaged Liverpool, Locally, Nationally and internationally. Online social media channels, for instance; flicker has shared 50,000 Liverpool ECoC photographs, YouTube (2,200 clips and 2.5 million views, Facebook (500 new group pages and 13,000 new members and mostly Liverpool ECoC has been searches with google search engine rather that Liverpool football searches (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019). By the end of 2008. %65 of United Kingdom residents knew that Liverpool has became the European Capital of Culture and %77 of the visitors thought that the city is safer than It used to be and like the new atmosphere as well as UK businesses which believed that ECoC had a positive impact on Liverpool positive image nationally and internationally.
During the program, Liverpool emphasized the role of the ECOC title in increasing access to culture and its commitment, as well as the potential role of culture in social consistency and development of the community. Liverpool tried to address access and inclusion problems by emerging two main programs within the city’s outlying and private neighbor hoods, Creative Communities and also the Four Corners neighborhood program. The Inspired Communities program was supposed to be the most important public and community arts program in Europe, receiving $11 million in four-year funding and involving 160,000 contributors, as well as all schools in Liverpool. The Four Corners program, involving 27,000 individuals, target to use art to discover and explore community life. Liverpool wanted to involve school children in the city as part of their Creative Learning Networks program to maximize cultural and creative education prospects and progress a program for cooperative teaching and learning with creativity. As an outcome, all students in the Liverpool contributed in at least one activity during the year. To improve participation within the population as total, Liverpool has built a devoted organization, the Liverpool Culture Company, responsible for organizing a program of brand events over eight thematic years. As result shown, the ECOC program in Liverpool controlled over 7000 activities in 2008 and more than 41,000 activities over four years (2005–2008). additionally, as a result of the implementation of extensive community arts programs covering all districts of the city , as well as all schools, the ECOC reinforced the cultural vitality of town and resulted in an vital cultural legacy (Liu, 2019).
Boland (2010) mentioned that major cultural events are often a chance to accelerate urban regeneration, economic development and city branding. relating to it, Getz (2007) describes major political objectives within the event sector. Regards to the economic policy, target is event tourism, that expects that visitor attraction will increase tourism-related economy and destination image. Another objective is event`s investment for general economy growth, that is the concept which events contribute city’s holistic economy like infrastructural development, employment and local businesses.
In order to support long-term impacts of an event, there is a requirement for mechanisms, for instance; monitoring programs, operational unit, infrastructure and financial support. Following 2008, the team who responsible for the distribution of future cultural programming is known as Culture Liverpool and works within the City Council. A cultural strategy has additionally been developed to make sure the legacy and heritage of the ECOC year and the continuation of the main program of events. Moreover, Liverpool Council has committed to supporting increased funding for culture for two more years (García, 2009).
Throughout the program, Liverpool highlighted the critical part of the ECOC in building a sense of community. The above-mentioned community development creativities, including the Creative Communities, Four Corners and the 08 Volunteer programs, have all tried to interact the local communities in the city’s cultural life and, in turn, the support of the local community. It absolutely achieved by encouraging disadvantaged communities to participate in projects that enable them to represent Liverpool and thus become active agents within the production of the image of this cultural city (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019).
Liverpool demonstrate both intention and commitment to support culture through formal cultural policy and governance structure and to use of culture in relation not other policy programs. Evidence prove that funding for future activities has been improved and investors from all over the world invest to run future events in Liverpool (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019). Liverpool ECoC stakeholders agreed that the current ear was seen as successful year, that it had additional profit to existing regeneration program which there was a great potential to grow in the future. Cities like Liverpool with previous low or negative profile have experienced an image rebirth, attracting considerable media attention and boosting international and national as well as local perceptions. ECoC program has an important effect on Liverpool`s cultural behavior and designed to strengthening networks and raising the capacity of ambition of the cultural sector (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019).
Liverpool needed the regeneration of the city as economically was declined and needed new homes also there were few shops in the city and derelict land, as well as violence and crime as tourists didn’t feel safe to visit the city and rather to go to Manchester with its popular shopping centers (the Guardian, 2019). Most of the city regeneration was by Liverpool Vision an urban regeneration company which is work with the public sector stakeholders, for instance; North West Regional Development Agency and Liverpool City Council.
Museum of Liverpool is the main new museum for the city, located on the waterfront. The museum demonstrates Liverpool`s unique contribution to the world and showcases popular culture while tracking social, historical and contemporary issues (Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk, 2019). The Beatles Story is the world`s leading Beatles-themed visitor attraction and in based in Liverpool, where Beatles birth. The Beatles Story was established in 1988, opening in the newly developed Albert Dock in May 1990. The Beatles story is told through the “Living History” audio guides narrated by John Lennon`s sister Julia. This is now available in twelve languages, making the Beatles story one of the leading UK attraction in foreign language provision (Beatlesstory.com, 2019). One of the largest ports in the UK is the post of Liverpool which is located on both banks of the river Mersey, and it connects with Dublin, Belfast and the Isle of Man as well as the home port of Titanic (Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk, 2019).
Liverpool residents were agreed more than ever that the town was a better place than before the ECoC award (85%). Nearly %78 of North West residents in agreement that city had ‘benefited’ or ‘benefited a good deal’ from hosting the ECoC. Internationally, the city ECoC is perceived as a relevant point of reference for future ECoC hosts and is discussed as a good example by the European Commission in areas like; volunteering, research programs and community involvement (Garcia, Melville and Cox, 2019).
In terms of legacies, Liverpool is one of the few cities which was a collection of both hard and soft (tangible and intangible) legacies before organizing the European City of Culture that still live in the city and make Liverpool a remarkable destination for tourists and event’s organizers. However after UK`s vote to take out from European Union, the European Commission has decided to decline British cities for bidding to be a European Capital of Culture which take place on 2023 (Harris, 2019) . The Victoria Gallery in the University of Liverpool`s distinctive red-brick clock tower and its Museum opened in 2008 which show the university`s collection to the students and the publics. Liverpool is well known as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that include Albert dock and Pier Head, Tate Liverpool and William Brown Street.
Conclusion
The author has used PESTLE analysis throughout the report to indicate and evaluate the six dimensions of regeneration impact (Politics, Economy, social, Technology, Environment, Legal) on Liverpool. Recently, increasing attention has been given to the socio-cultural impacts of major events. However, community development and social inclusion are weak elements of this event-led strategy of urban regeneration (Langen and Garcia, 2009). The view that Liverpool sees itself has been renew and sustained over a decade with culture being seen unmistakably at the center of the city`s rebirth. Across different analysis streams and methodologies, information reveals that the local and foreigners has a positive image about the city, a growth in national confidence and stronger appreciation of Liverpool as a fascinating cultural with a splendid future that was the case before 2008 (ECoC).
In order to maintain the legacy, Liverpool has tried it maximum potential to mix the event with alternative planned and long-term developments within the city. Furthermore, Liverpool suffered serious social issues caused by the economic recession and because of that looked at the ECOC as a chance to recover the sense of place. Additionally, there was a growing confidence within Liverpool`s self-image and external perceptions. Nevertheless, scepticism continued with the impacts of European City of Culture on the individual community, therefore a lower level of community sense was found. As a tourist destination city, Liverpool is the fifth most listed UK city for international visit. Physical cultural and entertainment infrastructure of Liverpool has been developed, for instance; Liverpool one and the Arena Convention Centre in 2008, which are intangible cultural heritage (News.liverpool.ac.uk, 2019). Liverpool`s challenge for the longer term is going to be whether or not it will convert the wealth of first-time tourists and visitors it attracted though the European Capital of Culture title back to the city or not (Liverpool.ac.uk, 2019). The ECOC has a crucial role for increasing cultural interest contributions and volunteers that shows this implementation strategy is necessary for improving social and cultural legacies for major events like European Capital of Culture.
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