Plymouth City of Culture 2017 - we're backing the bid!
The Plymouth Daily is delighted to be backing our city's bold and exciting bid to become the UK's City of Culture in 2017.
Plymouth's initial bid for this honour will be submitted today alongside 10 rival cities across the UK. There will then be an anxious wait until June while a panel of judges considers and finally shortlists 4 cities to go forward to a full and final bidding process for the title 'City of Culture 2017', with the winner due to be announced in November.
The other cities due to submit bids are Aberdeen, Chester, Dundee, East Kent (covering Ashford, Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone and Thanet), Hastings and Bexhill on Sea, Hull, Leicester, Portsmouth and Southampton, Southend on Sea and finally Swansea Bay (covering Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Neath, and Port Talbot).
Plymouth's bid team led by its Chair (and Chief Executive of the Theatre Royal), Adrian Vinken OBE, has been working on the initial 30-page vision document since January. The bid, supported by Plymouth City Council, has sparked a vibrant campaign across the city and via social media to encourage Plymouth people, organisations, businesses and celebrities such as home grown Olympian, Tom Daley to 'back the bid'.
The Plymouth campaign seems to have caught the imagination with people all over the city pledging their support.
On Twitter, the @Plymouth2017 account - https://twitter.com/Plymouth2017 - has been central to building support and a buzz around the campaign. It is encouraging people to go online today at 12.30 to mark the bid submission and tweet their support for Plymouth. Similarly on Facebook, visitors to the page - http://www.facebook.com/plymouth2017 - have posted their support and pictures.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport runs the bidding process and sets the following criteria for cities wishing to be considered:
- be distinctive, ambitious, and represent your local area
- demonstrate cultural excellence
- show innovation that will attract and entertain a huge range of audiences
- be realistic and deliverable
The eventual winner will be helped by the organisations supporting the UK City of Culture programme to develop, attract and host high-profile events and initiatives in 2017. These might include award ceremonies such as the Brits, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year or the Turner Prize, conferences, radio and television programmes and other specific cultural events and activities.
Additionally, the UK is currently scheduled to hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2017. Therefore there is potential (though no guarantees) for events associated with the Presidency to be hosted in the UK City of Culture.
The Plymouth Daily is proud to support Plymouth 2017 and wishes the team the very best of luck for the shortlisting process.
