Live events can make all the difference to a city
Colin Forshaw, regional director at Bruntwood, discusses the impact of live cultural events on developing cities and why it’s important for businesses to give their support.
There can sometimes appear to be a gulf between the quirky nuances of cultural events and the high-pressure demands of large commercial organisations.
It’s easy to see how businesses might find it hard to engage with an unfamiliar community, while event organisers struggle sometimes to attract the commercial backing they need to help maximise their offer.
The enduring strength of our business is grounded in creating vibrant cities that stimulate and inspire people through innovation, music and art, so we have been really pleased to back three very different cultural events in the Liverpool city region this year.
Sound City+, Binary Festival and TedX Liverpool are all distinct in their purpose and themes, yet each chimed perfectly with our own business beliefs and it was a straightforward decision to give each of them our backing.
Cities like Liverpool and Manchester are cultural powerhouses which beat their own path and stride confidently to their own distinct tune. The way in which those places have evolved physically and sociologically is inextricably linked to the evolution of their artists, makers and thinkers.
Culture in any form is the lifeblood of a city and it is little coincidence that cities such as Barcelona, Rio or New York, widely revered as the world’s greatest, ripple with cultural influence.
It’s vital therefore that the business community supports our cities’ cultural heartbeats and doesn’t take them for granted or assume they will survive regardless of what we throw at them.
For the commercial property community, it’s especially important that our ambitions are not seen as automatically separated from those of our neighbouring community or the wider city region. Music and arts venues are often the early casualties when short-sighted development takes place and that’s a real shame for everyone nearby. Have you ever been to a great city that didn’t have culture at its forefront?
We must instead work together to create somewhere that grows with, not against, an area and make sure it’s a place where people still want to be in five or ten years’ time. At Bruntwood, when we’re enthusiastic about a place, we don’t want to take it over; we want to join in!
It’s no secret that the creative and digital communities are now commonly the main drivers of economic growth in emerging areas and that’s why we take a keen interest in supporting these sectors. Indeed, the long-running Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, now the UK’s largest playwriting competition, was conceived on those same principles.
We find this approach helps us to foster genuine long-term relationships built on trust and mutual respect. It also helps us to attract the industry’s best emerging talent and experienced colleagues who care just as much as we do.
