Minutes:
(Mr. G. Copeland, Events Manager, attended in connection with this item.)
The Committee considered the undernoted report:
“1 Relevant Background Information
1.1Purpose of the Report
The purpose of this report is to:
- Request approval for the Council’s programme of events in 2012/13 inclusive of Olympic and Paralympic Games activity and the World Irish Dancing Championships.
- Update Members on the Titanic Belfast Festival 2012 (It should be noted that Council approval exists for Titanic Centenary activity in February 2011)
1.2Background
Over that last decade and half Belfast City Council has developed an annual programme of events alongside one-off events. The programme spans the calendar year from the annual St Patrick’s Day concert and parade in the spring, to the Christmas Lights Switch-on in the winter, and includes major sporting events.
1.3The annual budget for the events in the 2012/13 period is £1.7mand was approved by the Development Committee at its meeting on 10 January 2012 and is subject to ratification by Council on 1 February 2012.
2 Key Issues
2.1Titanic Belfast Festival 2012 and 2012/13 Events Programme
Details of the events programme, which is primarily based around key public and celebratory holidays and incorporates major sporting events, including the Belfast Marathon, is indicated in Table 1 below, with further detail on the Titanic Belfast Festival 2012 shown in Appendix 1. This event is being co-funded and coordinated with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.
2.2Table 1
Event & Date(s) Additional Details
World Irish Dancing This will be the fourth time that
Championships: Belfast has hosted the ‘Olympics’
30 March-7 April 2012 of Irish Dancing, which will see
thousands of competitors from around the world come to our city.
It should be noted a third venue is now required (St George’s Market) and there is a request to increase the original staging budget from £200k to £225k. The need for the third venue is due to increasing numbers of competitors than when the Belfast bid was submitted in 2010.
The additional £25,000 would be allocated from within the Council’s existing 2012 programme budgets.
Titanic Belfast Festival: This event programme will not
31 March – 22 April only mark the centenary of the
sailing and sinking of the RMS
Titanic, but also the opening of the Titanic Belfast attraction. The key elements of the programme are:
· International Digital Lighting Show
· MTV World Stage Concert
· Titanic Memorial Garden and Commemorative event
· Titanic ‘the Play’ with the MAC; Belfast Festival; Scottish National Theatre and Barbican
· BBC Memorial Concert
· BBC Proms concert
These events will be complemented with a series of talks, tours, exhibitions, drama and music. In addition the planned programme will also have input from other Titanic locations in: Cobh, Co Cork, Cherbourg, Southampton and Liverpool. There is also input from NITB; Titanic Belfast and Belfast Titanic Society.
Deep River Rock Belfast This will be the 31st year of
City Marathon: Ireland’s biggest mass
7 May participation event, which attracted over 20,000 competitors in 2011, a record for the event. At the time of writing this report some 1,200 marathon entries have been received for the 2012 event.
Olympic Torch Evening The Olympic flame will arrive into
Celebration: Belfast and traverse across the
6 June city culminating with an evening celebration, outside the grounds of City Hall, involving sports personalities and musical performances. Finance for the Olympic Torch Celebration would be funded from Council agreed reserves set aside in 2012/2013 budgets in regard to staging major international events – total cost would be £50,000.
Land of Giants: This event will involve the Lord
30 June Mayor and will replace the Lord Mayor’s Carnival in 2012. It is one of only four UK community celebrations that are part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The event is being delivered via a limited not-for-profit company which consists of: Beat Initiative; Belfast Community Circus; Young at Art and BCC.
Olympic and Paralympic This would be a series of events
Live Site programme: with links to Olympic and
TBC Paralympic programming along with live links to Royal Opera House in London. The series of events would be funded from the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure (DCAL) as part of its input to the BBC Live Site Screen programming at City Hall.
European Pipe Band Committee approved the bidding
Championship: for this event in 2009 and Belfast
28 July was successful in securing this prestigious event for a three year period (2010-2012). This one day event is anticipated to attract in the region of 12,000 spectators. The overall programming is operated in conjunction with the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association.
Paralympic Flame The proposed event from the
Festival: London 2012 organisers will see
25 August the Paralympic flame lit on the steps of Stormont and then traverse across Belfast, arriving into the grounds of City Hall for an afternoon/evening of entertainment and sports. Finance for the Paralympic Flame Festival would come from Council agreed reserves in regard to staging major international events – total cost would be £25,000.
Belfast Autumn Fair: This proposed event would be
22 & 23 September run in cooperation with BCC
operated with BCC Parks & Leisure incorporating
Parks and Leisure their traditional Autumn Flower
Show. This event normally
attracts an audience of 12,000 people.
Halloween Metro Annually this event has attracted
Monster Mash: Date an audience in excess of 25,000
TBC but either the and in the last few years has
31 Oct or the nearest been staged in Belfast Harbour,
date to it outside the Odyssey complex. Titanic Slipways are also being assessed as a suitable site in 2012.
Christmas Switch-on Anecdotally seen as the official
and programme: start of the City's festive season
Saturday 17 November this programme would be
launched with the annual switch-on, orientated towards a family audience. Members are asked to note a more detailed report on this event will be taken to Committee in the next two months due to crowd management issues encountered at the 2011 event.
Christmas Switch-on The 2012 programme includes
and programme: costs for a schools carol service
Saturday 17 November at the Belfast Waterfront
(organised with the Belfast School of Music), live music at City Hall and festive lighting on the building. The festive lighting would be based on the final lighting signage in 2011.
St Patrick’s Day: This planned event encompasses
17 March 2013 a carnival parade and live concert
to mark St Patrick’s Day. Parade participants come from across the city with the event attracting out -of-city and out-of-state visitors.
Support for Sport This is an annual programme of
funding funding that sports clubs and
sports event organisers can access. The programme is issued via a single tranche via public notices and is accessible via the Council’s webpage.
Sail Training Funding As in previous years it is
proposed that this funding will be used in connection with Ocean Youth Trust to continue the work of enhancing young people’s personal skills base via sailing activities. This process played an important part in BCC securing the Tall Ships race in 2015. In 2011, 424 young Belfast people availed of this opportunity.
Members are asked to note that it is essential to continue the
Council’s backing going forward to the 2015 Tall Ships
event.
Event Economic Impact This proposed finance comprises
Surveys & Event Bidding the economic surveys undertaken for each event and additionally provides for a level of contingency for the annual events programme.
2.3Lord Mayor’s Carnival 2012 and New Year’s Eve 2012
The above has neither a Lord Mayor’s Carnival event nor a New Year’s Eve event programmed in 2012. The absence of the Lord Mayor’s event is due to the Council agreeing to the transfer of resources to the Land of Giants project. However, there will be input from the 2012/13 Lord Mayor into the project delivery on 30th June. A report on the Lord Mayor’s event will be taken to Committee next month.
2.4The lack of a New Year’s event is in line with 2008 Members’ decision to halt funding, to this event, due to costs.
3 Resource Implications
3.1Financial
The total overall budget for this programme, inclusive of the Titanic Belfast Festival, is £1.7 million.
3.2The additional £25,000 for the World Irish Dancing Championships would also be allocated from within the Council’s existing 2012/13 programme budgets. The additional finance for the Olympic Torch Run Celebration and Paralympic Flame Festival would be funded from Council agreed reserves set aside in 2012/2013 in regard to staging major international events at a total cost of £75,000.
4 Recommendations
4.1The following decisions are required from Members:
(i) to note the programme details for Titanic Belfast Festival 2012
(ii) to endorse the 2012/13 programme, subject to full Council approval on the Department’s budgets
(iii) to approve £25,000 additional finance for the World Irish Dancing Championships in 2012
(iv) to approve finance for the Olympic Torch Run Celebration and Paralympic Flame Festival funded from reserves set aside in 2012/2013 in regard to staging major international events at a total cost of £75,000.”
Regarding plans outlined within the report to utilise St. George’s Market as a third venue for the hosting of the Irish World Dancing Championships, a Member referred to a request for information which he had submitted to the Director in respect of the legal position regarding the priority usage of St. George’s Market by local community groups. He indicated that he had received no clarification and sought further information in this regard.
In response, the Director referred to the contents of the 1996 contract between the Council and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which oversaw the agreement for the restoration of the building, which stated, within Clause 8, that there was no specific arrangement in place for community groups but merely an agreement that the Council would arrange for the general public to have full and appropriate access to the property and provide, on demand, details of such access to the National Heritage Memorial Fund. In addition, the Council would ensure that no person would be denied unreasonable access to the property.
The Committee adopted the recommendations.