A Sinn Féin councillor has questioned “value for money” on Belfast’s flagship cultural programme, Belfast 2024.
During a recent update on the programme at a Belfast City Council committee meeting at City Hall, Councillor Conor Maskey criticised the programme, on which the council has spent nearly five million pounds so far.
He stated that while a Féile Halloween event cost around 50 pence per head and was a big success in terms of numbers, the Belfast 2024 programme has cost the council so far on average £50 per head, with some events costing over £250 per head.
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In the latest update report, council officials describe Belfast 2024 as “our year-long celebration of home-grown culture and creativity featuring new and exciting events, theatre, music, and art developed through innovative co-design and partnership models with the city stakeholders, the creative sector, and the citizens of Belfast”.
The report states: “The objective is to deliver on the aims of the City Council’s Cultural and Tourism strategies, UNESCO City of Music status, Belfast Agenda, Bolder Vision and Belfast Stories development – all founded in a belief and a commitment from the council that culture, sustainability, collaboration, partnership and people should be at the heart of the city’s development.”
Last month Belfast 2024 included Bounce Culture, a North Star programme inspired by anti-slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglas’s time in Belfast, looking at contemporary black culture in Belfast and what it means to belong in Belfast.
This month has already seen “BIAF – Hear/Touch/Feel,” a dance performance led by visually impaired artists and communities, and Red Sky at Night, a residency programme with six international artists showcasing their work in public parks spaces at night.
Belfast 2024 is currently showcasing “Are you on the Bus?,” a programme exploring the city’s LGBTQIA+ heritage and next week there will be the “Our Stories” Festival. The “Household Belfast Right to the Night” events will continue to the end of next year, and a special film called “Hearth” will be shown next month as part of the Belfast Film Fest.
The council has spent £2.7million in creative and cultural sector commissioning locally, £960,000 to direct commissions and partnerships, and £0.9million towards “strategic and music-based events” for the Belfast UNESCO City of Music designation and city music strategy.
After a presentation update on the Belfast 2024 programme at the November meeting of the City Growth and Regeneration Committee at City Hall, Sinn Féin Councillor Conor Maskey said: “When we take these on board, I am just wondering do we have benchmarks on value for money?
“Let me tell you why – after going through most of the events that have taken place, when you take a look at the participants who have come and witnessed these art pieces, as well as the numbers of them and the money we have given for that – a lot of those events are coming in around the £50 per head mark.
“There is one – Wiggle Room in the Mac – which when you divide it out amongst the participants, it costs about £280 a head. I know every art piece is different, and has a different effect on people.
“Féile did a Halloween experience costing £15,000 in total, with a story telling competition and other events. Two things stood out – there were 12,000 people at fireworks events, and 14,000 people went through a haunted house over a period of days. For those two events, you are talking about 50p a head.
“We should be looking at this. We should be looking at all the groups out in the city that are doing really powerful value for money stuff. Derry is the place to be for Halloween, but we pushed forward this year, the events in Royal Avenue were fantastic. We should say in 10 years time we should be nearly at Derry’s level.”
He said the council should look at “parameters to get best bang for the buck”.
A council officer responded: “This isn’t a city events programme, and I don’t think it is fair to compare this programme to Halloween fireworks displays. It is a very different approach to cultural engagement and partnership and citizen development.
“And yes, they are all new, experimental things. We went through an open process, through the open call. Part of the tendering process was about value for money, and that was about looking at how many people they aim to reach throughout the year.”
She said: “Bearing in mind we launched in February, and we signed off the contracts in November 2023, with four months to pull it together, and to sell the thing, I think we have actually got quite a high level of participation.
“It may not be what we wanted, but actually when you break it down to each event, the meaning behind each event and the quality of each experience has been extraordinarily high. Which I think has value.
“And yes numbers are really important when it comes to value for money for Belfast City Council, but I think as a whole the programme is delivering on value and quality of experience and legacy.”
Green Councillor Brian Smyth said at the meeting: “Arts spending in Northern Ireland has fallen by 49 percent in the last decade, and is the lowest per capita in the UK. We don’t take the arts seriously.
“So this council has been left to pick up the pieces of the failures of the Stormont Executive. This council is doing a hell of a job in terms of supporting the arts.”
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By the end of August, the programme had saw 549 events delivered, with 35,000 participants/attendees, 811 artists and contractors involved and 203 programme partners involved.
In the council’s interim report on Belfast 2024, feedback based on 600 audience and contractor surveys showed 99 percent of attendees agreed they had a good time. 97 percent agreed the activity was “absorbing and held their attention,” and 98 percent agreed they would “come to something like it again.”
The feedback said 98 percent of attendees agreed they “felt welcome and included,” 95 percent agreed they felt “connected to others” and 97 percent agreed that they felt “proud that it was happening in Belfast.”
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