Strategy

Festivals and Events Strategy

North East England is a region that has never feared to imagine, innovate and face up to challenges. It has a tradition for creating brilliant ideas.

Supporting and nurturing this spirit of creativity, and developing a new focus on culture as a driver of renaissance, is now at the heart of the Regional Economic Strategy (RES).

While creativity and innovation are championed, culture in its widest sense is woven right across the fabric of the RES. It is recognised as having three key contributory roles to play in achieving the aims of the Strategy:

Culture as an economic driver
Culture as a tool for the development of people and communities
Creating, enhancing and promoting a vibrant cultural environment

One NorthEast is working closely with Culture North East - the body charged by Government with championing cultural interests in the region - and regional cultural agencies. Their aim is to realise the potential of culture to contribute to the economic regeneration of the region.

Inspired and creative people and communities are the foundation of a vibrant North East England. They are the key to advancing of the region's image and position in a globally competitive market.

By developing a vibrant cultural environment the region is able to attract more highly skilled, creative and innovative people. These are exactly the kind of people who, with their ideas and imagination, drive productive companies and lively economies.

An entrepreneurial culture is built on individuals with confidence and high aspirations, people who are prepared to take risks. Creating the environment that attracts and retains those entrepreneurs will be paramount in supporting the future success of the region.

Cultural Investment

Cultural investment and achievement has played a key role in building the self-confidence and ambition of the region as it has faced massive challenges in both economic and social terms.

Over 100 years of under-investment required major capital spending to reverse the decline in the region's cultural infrastructure. For more than a decade regional partners have worked together to invest over £200 million in such iconic flagships as the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Sage Gateshead.

Place - and space - inspire and define us. So these landmark projects and others such as the Angel of the North, the National Glass Centre, and the Tees Barrage, have all inspired those who live here. This has revitalised a sense of regional pride, enhanced the region's image in the outside world and changed the perceptions of new investors.

Cultural heritage plays a major role at the heart of the regional tourism industry. The region boasts two World Heritage Sites in Hadrian's Wall, and Durham Cathedral and Castle. Museums across the North East attract more than 3.2 million visitors annually, with Beamish attracting around 300,000 tourists a year. Segedunum Roman Fort was voted one of the top ten museums in the world by the Sunday Times Travel supplement and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens has been the most visited local museum in the country.

The scale of investment that has been made, backed by tremendous community participation, support for talent and a growing capacity to stage world-class events, has been at the heart of the region's renaissance. This saw NewcastleGateshead making an impressive and much supported bid to be European Capital of Culture - an idea which would have been unthinkable little more than a decade ago.

Festivals and Events Strategy

In 2005 following the launch of the North East Tourism Strategy 2005-2010, partners across North East England began to develop a strategy for festivals and events.

Led by One NorthEast, these partners included Sport England; Arts Council England, North East; Culture North East; the private sector; local authorities and the Culture10 team, based within NewcastleGateshead Initiative. The purpose of the work was to clarify the role that festivals and events play within key economic and social agendas, identify future development requirements and clarify the strategic relationships with regional and sub-regional economic programme activity including Culture10, the North East Tourism Strategy and the Regional Image Campaign.

The process has highlighted the wide range of motives for organising festivals and events and the many purposes, including economic and social, that festivals and events can fulfil. Led by One NorthEast, this strategy sets out how partners can improve primarily, the economic but also the social impact of festivals and events in North East England and provides a strategic context for coordinated investment in festivals and events activity. This strategy acknowledges existing regional strengths, provides clarity as to the roles and responsibilities of regional and sub regional partners and begins to address gaps in the range, quality and geographic spread of activity.

This strategy is available to download. It is an evolving document. Partners involved will continue to work together to ensure that on the ground activity delivers the maximum economic and social return for North East England.

Strategy

Festivals and Events Strategy

Download the Documents