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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, or 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.

Publications in 2010

New reports on responses to Liverpool’s ECoC

Posted on June 21, 2010 by ECOC Policy Group

Impacts 08 has just published two new reports on Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture in 2008:

Further reports are available on the publication section of the Impacts 08

 

The European dimension

Both Stravanger and Liverpool were in 2008 the European Capitals of Culture. Since they were designed to be really a show case on behalf of the nation, a claim made especially by Bob Scott, director of Liverpool '08 and subsequently chairman of the jury doing the selection of future ECoCs, claims of success by both cities have to be questioned especially due to the neglected European dimension.

In retrospect, it is becoming increasingly apparent as part of an ongoing reflection that some obvious discrepancies between official claims of success and what took place in reality exist. According to various reports, many important matters have been overlooked when planning for '08 and therefore the implementation itself revealed the very weakness of the original concept. Interestingly enough, the outcome of the adopted methods of evaluation has been characterised indirectly by Bob Palmer in 2010 as 'spin doctor' like reports.

Still this model has an impact. Valletta 2018 has adopted the Liverpool model for monitoring / evaluation purposes. As it is atuned to strict managerial considerations, it will not pick up what is so often amiss in many cases. Too often this strive for a certain success leaves aside any cultural content linked to criticism much needed if the arts are to be sustained. It should also be clear that not just any kind of future development path ought to be followed, for primarily the cultural impact thereof has to be anticipated prior to agreeing to things which can and do have an impact upon way of life.

Both cities claimed that they wanted to do something in the name of not merely local, but European cultures. Still, Stavanger could not really cope in the end with all the demand. Although the city had promised an experience of the anthropological dimension of a cultural city, visitors and locals alike found that these expectations 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 was equally a port but not transformed by oil into a rich town as the case with Stavanger. Instead Liverpool faced for years the down slope of a 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 unanswered if the efforts undertaken by both cities were truly successful in bringing together the local and the European level? Practically doubt prevails to date that either city succeeded in this, even though admittedly Liverpool attracted much attention at the time not so much throughout Europe but within the European Commission and Brussels. While Stavanger failed to communicate, Liverpool was most successful in that exercise of public relations. It reflects the position of Bob Scott who made communication and especially contact with the media / press especially in London into a top priority for Liverpool '08.

However, it is altogether another question as to what kind of cultural programme will let the local setting make its own mark, and this not merely during the one decisive year, but over and in time because certain things have been set into motion. Naturally 'locality' is not the same when referring to the harbour front compared to some neglected quarters of the city. That is important to be kept in mind since the city of Liverpool wished to make use of this one special year. The city wanted to get out of a 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 front came at a huge prize for everything else was neglected while critics would charge this effort ended up being practically a financial fraud. For 2008 turned out to be a huge opportunity for consulting companies to set up 'fake' offices just to benefit from extra EU funds. They could obtain EU subsidies if they claimed to be running training programs for new business set-ups in this down trodden area. As had been the case as long as West Berlin existed due to the wall and the West Germany government provided extra subsidies for companies which set up businesses in West Berlin, even though in reality they retained their main office in Munich or Cologne, all these fake investments e.g. training courses amount to a financial scam. Nevertheless it shows the power of instigation when it comes to making business possible 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.

As to the overall strategy for Liverpool '08, the organisation wanted to convey through this special year to convey a new approach to things, one which could be appreciated by the EU Commission since not a duplicate of other ECoC 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. Only a minor adjustment was made to compensate for this, and to fulfil the European dimension, by initiating the project Cities on the Edge as advised by Franco Bianchini.

Certainly the Institute of Cultural Capital gives a normal account of Liverpool '08 by substantiating with its Impact '08 studies that the city adopted for the 'right reasons' the undertaking of the listed initiatives, and not others which were just as conceivable. By doing so it creates a new platforms of communication based on research findings called putting 'numbers in context'. The critical question here becomes then what does this institute allow to address in retrospect in order to learn further from the lesson Liverpool '08 provides to date? In other words, does this approach taken allow that some very specific problems are addressed without being subsumbed by the necessary task, namely to ensure Liverpool '08 can be sold still today as one big success story? For serious doubts are raised alone by looking at the participation of local people since many reports points out they were left out and consequently Liverpool is better presented if it is admitted that it is as well a story about 'missed out opportunities'. (Francesca Battistoni (2011) „Liverpool 2008 : capital of whose culture? The cities on the edge project“ Tafterjournal n. 42 - dicembre 2011 -numero speciale http://www.tafterjournal.it/2011/12/05/liverpool-2008-capital-of-whose-culture-the-cities-on-the-edge-project/)

While reporting by a city having been European Capital of Culture takes place within the own jurisdiction, there are some requirements to be fulfilled as demanded not only by the European Commission, but by the general public. Reports should not amount to be mere window dressings.

What matters most when reporting is that it should provide equally access to decision makers at the European Union level so that they can evaluate the outcome but also the people of Liverpool should be able to judge what was done after all in their name. The latter factor should not be underestimated when it comes to appraising how use was made of the designation of the title. For it empowers as well a city to do something extraordinary, and this mainly due to the input by the citizens of that city. However, when it is said that highly paid experts came for this special year and departed as soon as that year was over, it evokes the image of voltures descending the moment they detect a piece of meat on the ground and once eaten up leave. Thus it is a matter of how use was made of this 'extra ordinary energy' which can and does open up a lot of doors and can bring many more people of the city in contact with novel actions and performances they would never have dreamt of before as being possible.

Yet a first appraisal of the Liverpool program shows a strong leaning towards entertainment with all the well known spin-offs hoped for e.g. more visitors who bring revenue into the city. Basically it means that the programme was not orientated towards culture. A lot is said in the final report on how basic facts are established, in order to be able to claim it having been success story. Thus it is pointed out how hotels, restaurants, night bars, etc. were all filled due to many conferences taking place in the city. Equally all sorts of gimmick products with the logo of Liverpool on them were offered to gain in extra revenue from tourist shops. This indicates that a certain business model was followed without problematizing that the much more differentiated narrative of a city like Liverpool should not be reduced to clichees and tokinism. Yet the mangerial culture in England tends to reduce everything to that level as if the normal customer is in want of only symbolic items but without any substantial content. So it is possible to claim success in terms of items sold and revenue gained as a result, but it is quite another if the true narratives of Liverpool came really across. In the long run, the cheap way of gaining success may end up being more costly since the silence of people marks itself a reluctance to engage themselves in municipal affairs and thereby reproduce even more problems sought to have been solved by this alteration of a negative into a positive image. If Liverpool' 08 has solely confirmed that things are done as is usual the case when strong business interests are involved, then not much will have changed since the deeply rooted cynical attitudes will continue to prevail and even more so will have been strengthened by this negative experience. It is after all not a question of only how many participated in the various events, but how and what did they take home and still talk about today, many years later when looking back to the year 2008. If the main feeling prevails that it was a missed opportunity, then this regret can lead to a new form of perplexity.

A commercial drive towards success means solely a functional use of culture was made wherever possible. That is exploitation of culture to the fullest and contradicts any claim that an ethical vision was what framed the vision of Liverpool '08. At no time, it seems aside from this commercial drive, that an effort was made 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 seemed to have been promoted by Liverpool during that year of 2008. As such this failure will have even more grave consequences insofar as a possible departure of the UK from the European Union would have a serious impact upon both the UK and the rest of Europe. 

Since Liverpool '08 was designed to be a show case of what can be done with culture, or more precisely with this institution called 'European Capital of Culture', in order to gain money, it means rather than being a capital in cultural terms, it was transformed into a money making monster. The huge budget of Liverpool '08 testifies to that fact.

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 about the future of Europe if only united by economic reasoning and therefore efforts made to allow for culturally orientated policy formulations. Above all the experiences of artists and cultural workers would need to be reflected upon, in order to step outside simplistic or populist notions about the state of affairs in European. That includes evaluating what can and does affect EU cultural policy and above all the funding of the arts, but means much more as pointed out by Franco Bianchini when differentiated viewpoints articulated by artists contradict and challenge prevailing politicial notions as to what should govern people's affairs.(Prof. Franco Bianchini (2014) „An answer“ given at the “International Perspectives on Participation and Engagement in the Arts” conference from 20-21 June 2014 in Utrecht. http://tandemexchange.eu/about-tandem/community-participation/news/single-view-community-participation/?tx_news_pi1[news]=22&tx_news_pi1[controller]=News&tx_news_pi1[action]=detail&cHash=8d4548e9ff2c2f01516491dd98ba4dd7)

The key term for all of that would be 'cultural governance'. Evaluation should, therefore, include the criterion 'what contribution a city having been designated the title European Capital of Culture has made to strengthen the collective voices in Europe by fulfilling the European dimension through substantial cultural efforts e.g. bringing out the diversity of voices on the basis of which many different dialogues can take place. This is said in view of the term 'intercultural dialogue' not being helpful despite being upheld by the European Union as a major tool in its foreign policy efforts.

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, libraries. This is surely connected to such investment schemes which favour flagship proposals but by going for this kind of solution everything else is at risk to stand in the shade of the big monster.

Most measures taken by cities when it comes to doing something with the arts and/or for culture, are a far cry away from cultural planning. Again Franco Bianchini would emphasize here the bottom-up, participatory model of cultural planning, and not a top own process designed solely by experts. In short, cultural planning can be considered to be only then 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, all while finding a voice themselves.

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.

Final 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 until 2010. 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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