Image Credit: Atanas Paskalev
Callum Lee
Managing Director
Callum leads the BOP team, its portfolio and strategic partnerships. His cultural and creative industries expertise is grounded in his work for major clients in the UK, Europe and Middle East.
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Liverpool is one of the world’s great music cities.
The Beatles’ legacy attracts ever-increasing numbers of visitors to the city from across the globe, and the combination of this unique heritage and the diverse strengths of the city’s contemporary, classical and community music scenes led to the city being awarded UNESCO World City of Music status in 2015.
In order to make sure that the city not only maintains its status but evolves into a globally recognised music innovation hub for the next 50 years, Culture Liverpool and Liverpool City Council commissioned BOP to put together the city’s first official music strategy.
Our approach was to measure the economic impact of city’s music sector, as well as provide analysis of Liverpool’s existing music assets and how the sector currently operates.
Key findings included:
The music sector contributes £100.5 million in direct annual turnover to the city of Liverpool
Music tourism - anchored in The Beatles’ music legacy in the city - contributes £98 million to the local economy per annum
Liverpool has a particularly strong live music scene, with a live music audience of 937,000 per annum - made up of 520,000 local visitors and the remainder from the rest of the UK and overseas. The box office figure for live music is estimated at £48.4 million per annum.
Supported by consultations with over 60 stakeholders representing all parts of Liverpool’s music ecology, these findings informed strategic recommendations. These included:
The creation of a new Liverpool City of Music Board, comprised of representatives from across the city region, to provide sector and community leadership for the future development of the music sector and visitor economy offer
Better joining up Liverpool’s music and education sector with a designated plan to increase engagement and develop talent from all communities across the region
Establishing a Liverpool Music Office - along the lines of the city’s successful Liverpool Film Office - to streamline engagement between public sector and music industry.
This is timely moment for the report to be released, with the City of Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson commenting:
“We want to make the most of this sector and get an accurate picture of today’s music scene and understand what we can put in place to ensure it reaches its potential. This is the first time a report of this scale and detail has been undertaken, and working in partnership with creative experts is a significant step to achieving a city region-wide strategy which will invest and enhance all aspects of our music sector.”
The full strategy can downloaded below.
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A global research and consulting practice for culture and the creative economy
The report outlines the findings from a major study into the international activity of the Arts Council England-supported cultural ecosystem.
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Hitting the right notes in the Midlands
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