Breakout Period, July 16th, 12-1pm
11. Involving Young People in Events
Freddie Hudson (Arsenal Positive Futures); Damian Payton (Radiowaves/Supporter to Reporter)
Young people are a key focus of the conference - their access to events and the benefits they can feel from them. Freddie runs the very successful Arsenal Positive Futures project and Damian is responsible for the Supporter to Reporter project run by Radiowaves who were a feature of last year’s conference and will again be involving young people in reporting from the conference itself. This session brings together these different experiences, with practical outputs for the audience in terms of involving young people in their events.
12. Making Cultural Venues Open
Dave Moutrey and Sarah Perks (Cornerhouse)
There is increasing pressure on cultural and arts venues to meet a range of agendas in terms of being centres for the delivery of events on a daily basis. One of these is the drive to make arts venues more ‘open’, accessible and to involve the audience more in programming, something which both Dave and Sarah have been intimately involved with. Cornerhouse is Manchester’s leading contemporary arts venue and is moving toward more ‘open source’ programming as well as being a leading example of running initiatives for the creation and consumption for art and media by and for young people.
Conference Report
Dave Moutrey, the Director and Chief Executive Officer at Cornerhouse began the session explaining the history and activities of the venue, ‘We are a visual arts and cinema venue and opened in 1985. We show specialized films and have 3 galleries, 2 bookshops, a café and a bar.’ He went onto explain that the education and marketing teams were brought together to create an ‘engagement’ team. This team delivers, ‘interpretive and interactive events such as the ‘Projector’ programme for 14-19 year olds and the ‘Underexposed’ programme for new and emerging directors.’
Sarah who leads the engagement work at the Cornerhouse posed the question of what an ‘open’ venue means to the audience. This question was deliberated in small groups and the audience decided that to be open the venue must be physically accessible, culturally accessible and comfortable at the same time as not being pandering to a clique or over-specialised group.
Sarah concluded the session explaining their ‘Live-Wire’ project which encompasses a range of projects across film, art and multi-media. These sessions are open and free and more importantly are delivered at flexible access points across the city, ‘we perform targeted outreach and young people attend and chair our management team meetings.’ The session produced a wide debate upon what makes a venue open and how to reach multiple audiences. More information about the work and programmes of the Cornerhouse can be found on their website; http://www.cornerhouse.org/today/
13. The Importance of Small Events
Andy Preece (Director, PMP)
Although much of the events agenda centres around the mega events in sport and culture, Andy Preece, from leading consultants PMP, will argue that there is a need to recognise the limitations of these and the opportunities in smaller, less high profile events. Based on extensive experience, Andy will outline his views that ‘bigger is not necessarily better’, that smaller towns and cities can be major players and that communities need to make the most of the capacity they have. The session will conclude with discussion and involvement of delegates in identifying pointers on how these benefits can be achieved.
14. Evaluating Events (2)
Professor Chris Gratton (Sheffield Hallam University); Dr Calvin Jones (Cardiff University)
The second of our sessions on evaluating events looks in detail at two different, but related, impacts: economic and environmental. As part of a consortium now researching a new framework for evaluating events, and with extensive experience, you could hardly ask for more relevant presenters, with Chris focusing on economic impacts and Calvin on ways to evaluate environmental effects.
Conference Report
This session contrasted the approaches of two major regional cities – Manchester and Leeds – to planning and staging event. Eamonn O’Rourke explained how, following its Olympic bids and the success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester has established a reputation for staging large-scale international events, especially in the field of sport. He also explained that the core drivers for Manchester’s events strategies are economic and social regeneration. Andrew Macgill explained how Leeds has to date adopted a more modest approach to planning and staging events, concentrating largely on hosting free sports and cultural events for local people. However, in line with a new facilities and infrastructure building programme he explained that Leeds is now seeking to stage more high profile national and international events. In doing so, it will be considering the development a more thoroughgoing legacy and monitoring programme.
15. Understanding Participation in Cultural Events
Dr Abigail Gilmore (Northwest Culture Observatory); Ruth Melville (Impact 08)
This session will look at recent research from two major events in the region – Liverpool 08 and Manchester International Festival - what they tell us about arts and cultural audiences and the nature of participating in events. How can we better capture the benefits of events to local cultural infrastructures, what constitutes participation, how this is represented in evaluation and what use can be made of research in audience development and programming?
