Question Time 3 – Cultural and Arts Events and their Legacies

Andrew Ramsey, DCMS

“The intention to deliver a successful legacy has to be there from the start.”

“Legacies are not a happy consequence of events, but part of what they are about.”

“The keys to a successful legacy are a successful event, long-term planning, and the widest involvement of individuals and the community.”

Dave Moutrey, Cornerhouse

“The instrumentalist approach to an event is the death knell of legacy. It’s approaching it from the wrong end of the spectrum.”

“Even in big sporting events there are huge opportunities to engage people, to truly involve them and trust them.”

Josephine Burns, BOP consulting

“We’ve had 20 years of throwing public money at events and we’re still tackling the same issues.”

“Without a much more robust sense of what we mean by it, all this talk about legacy is just cant.”

“Often the change that really happens is not the change we expected. The much more interesting changes are often those which public policy can’t reflect.”

Helen Grdadolnik, CABE

“A lot of people feel they have no say in the regeneration projects that are affecting them and their places.”

Beatriz Garcia, Impact 08, Liverpool University

“The issue that’s not resolved yet is what we mean by evidence. We have to go beyond proving the value of cultural events by economic assessment.”

“We have to look beyond the easily measurable factors. It’s the experiences of people that we keep failing to assess.”