Manchester International Festival
Manchester International Festival (‘MIF’) was held between 28 June and 15 July 2007, although the planning stage began more than three years earlier in January 2004.
By drawing on Manchester’s distinctive attributes the Festival addresses contemporary issues and narratives through a strong musical focus. The inaugural year of this ambitious project, which will take place every two years, won international acclaim and an enthusiastic audience response.
Manchester City Council gave £2.3million in funding to the project, with £1.2million coming from Salford City Council, The Urban Cultural Programme and Arts Council England. A further £3.6m was contributed by fourteen different sponsors. (link to list of sponsors)
The Festival had four main aims:
- To create an internationally unique festival which inspires new and original work across the full range of arts.
- To build on and secure Manchester’s reputation as a city of culture, celebrating its pivotal role in music, science and the arts and as a leader in innovation.
- To encourage participation in the Festival by people across the spectrum of Manchester’s communities and social groups as well as by local artists and key cultural figures.
- To make a recognisable and sustainable economic contribution which forms a lasting legacy for the City.
How does this project carry out the Cultural Ambition?
Culturally Distinctive
Artistic ambition and innovation were the driving force behind a number of world premieres which took place as part of Manchester International Festival. These included:
- Monkey: Journey to the West, a new opera directed by Chen Shi Zheng with music by Damon Albarn and design by Jamie Hewlett, which has since toured internationally;
- Il Tempo del Postino, a group show by 15 of the world’s leading contemporary artists including Matthew Barney, Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon and Pierre Huyghe;
- new theatre productions including Interiors, a site-specific work by Stewart Lee and Johnny Vegas;
- three new ice cream flavours by Heston Blumenthal;
- an international music series that featured Lou Reed, Kanye West, P J Harvey, and a free outdoor concert featuring Gossip and The Whip.
These Manchester Firsts help to guide Manchester towards establishing itself as a production centre for new and original work. The attention MIF has attracted to the City and its cultural attributes has been a catalyst in its increasing renown on the world stage. Reviewing “Monkey: Journey to the West”, The Times’ Richard Morrison observed,
“The organisers of Manchester ‘s new International Festival promised to give the city a cultural jamboree unlike any other in the world…if they all hit the spot like this opening show, the world will come flocking to Manchester”
Community Inspired
MIF aimed to target local, regional, national and international audiences including those who are generally under-represented in arts audiences such as younger urban people, parents whose children have recently left home and short break visitors.
- Audience evaluation from the Festival shows that it attracted 1,289 audience members from identified deprived areas of Manchester (Super Output Areas);
- Festival events also attracted a high percentage of ‘first-timers’, with 27% attending an art form for the first time – of these, 25% attended contemporary art for the first time, 24% classical music and 21% opera.
By raising awareness of cultural activities among residents, Manchester International Festival has the ability to impact on audiences in the City by potentially increasing take up of the cultural offer outside of the Festival period.
Creative Investor
Specific targets were set for the Festival with the intention of making an identifiable and sustainable economic contribution. These targets were exceeded:
- 310 local suppliers were appointed (target: 20);
- MIF achieved an economic impact value of £28.8 million – this exceeded the target of £19.1m by 51%.
The significant monetary impact and the engagement of local suppliers exemplify the benefit investment of investment in culture to the wider City and regional economy.
Talent City
Along with the City Council, MIF organisers also set targets for encouraging involvement by local people. Again these were exceeded:
- 294 volunteers were recruited (target: 200);
- 38 jobs were created (target: 29).
By encouraging the creation of jobs and volunteering opportunities for Manchester residents the Festival demonstrates how culture can be used to improve employability and provide a platform for skills, training and education.
Culturally Connected
The marketing plan for Manchester International Festival was carefully constructed with the aim of reaching the greatest number of people locally, nationally and internationally. This was achieved through successful partnership working with other cultural and tourism organisations.
- MIF worked closely with Visit Manchester to design a campaign in print, through the media, key exhibitions and e-newsletters and micro-sites;
- Visit Manchester identified the gay and lesbian community in Germany as a key target market for Manchester’s cultural offer, which includes the Village and Gay Pride. MIF was the leading message in the German campaign, which was rolled out in partnership with Air Berlin and VisitBritain;
- In Spain marketing for Manchester International Festival targeted the youth market through a ‘Manchester Music Speaks’ e-newsletter. Further work with the popular youth magazine and website Club Oxigeno achieved a total reach of 1,002,500 people;
- The Summer in the City 2007 campaign promoted MIF as one of the summer highlights on its microsite. A newsletter with a link to the SITC page was sent out to 600,000 contacts, including airlines and tour operators. As a result the promotion reached a substantial number of people with Summer in the City becoming the second most visited page on visitmanchester.com during the period;
- The Festival attracted a great deal of positive media coverage, worth over £12million. This included 12 hours national BBC coverage, 288 articles in national printed media an 302 articles in international, online, trade and consumer publications;
- Marketing activity through Visit Manchester achieved a total reach of 2,445,960 which was extended through MIF marketing activity.
The Manchester International Festival approach to marketing is illustrates how partnership working between organisations can help the City’s cultural offer to reach the maximum number of people. Identification of specific audiences to be targeted abroad has proved to be effective, particularly when working with relevant international partners. Through working with MIF, Visit Manchester has found numerous opportunities to promote the city as a vibrant and innovative European destination. The campaign will have benefits which extend beyond the cultural sector by providing an example of best practice and putting in place productive relationships and new ways of working.
2009 Festival Image Credits
The Great Indoors © Rude
Procession by Jeremy Deller © Tim Sinclair
Marina Amramovi? Presents… © Marco Anelli
Elbow – no credit
Prima Donna © Antony Crook
Everybody Loves a Winner © Design by Music
Carlos Acosta © Angela Taylor
Amadou & Mariam and the Beating Wing Orchestra © Shaw & Shaw
Festival Pavilion © Stephenson-Bell
Brochure cover - concept Gustav Metzger, design Peter Saville, photo Karen Wright