Event services

Tender description

Portsmouth City Council, the ‘Authority’, is inviting tenders for the provision of Christmas market(s) from 2018 onwards, to enhance the celebration of Christmas for residents, visitors and shoppers. The vision of the Authority is to make the markets a destination and experience at Christmas for visitors from a wider area. This contract is split into two lots based upon market location. Lot 1 is for the provision of a core Christmas market offer at the city centre and Lot 2 is for the provision of a Christmas market offer in Palmerston Road, Southsea. The Authority is targeting to have awarded by the contract/s by 3.10.2017. The initial Contract period will commence in November 2018 and run for 5 years with possibility of extending the term by a further 5 years in increments to be agreed to a maximum total term of 10 years. Offers may also be submitted which offer a longer base term where significant investment and improvements can be demonstrated. The Authority hopes to maximise the potential innovation through adopting an open output based specification. Subsequent to this the Authority will manage the contract on a true mutually incentivised partnership basis to ensure that the offer is continually improved over time. The Authority's key objectives for the new offer are: 1. To deliver a clear step change in the quality and range of the Christmas market offer in Portsmouth. 2. To fundamentally change the markets from being visited purely by local people in the City to markets that attract visitors from a wider area and so become a visitor destination in their own right. 3. To ensure markets are central to the new public realm strategy currently being drawn up and highlight their key role in place shaping the city. 4. To ensure that Christmas markets are part of the overall street market strategy for the city. 5. To put in place longer term contracts for markets so that much greater capital investment can be made by the successful contractor. 6. To provide a more comprehensive coverage of Christmas markets in the whole of the City. 7. To ensure Christmas markets reflect the changing demographic in the City e.g. as regards the population increase, the student population diversity and more affluent city dwellers. 8. To ensure Christmas markets reflect and support the high quality local craft and creative sectors in the city. 9. To ensure Christmas markets deliver an offer that is distinctive and is relevant to the different sites across the city. The Authority reserves the right to extend the scope of the contract to cover the management of additional market sites and services across the City, either in whole or in part. Take up of options to extend the scope of the contract will be at the Authority's sole discretion. The Authority will be undertaking a two stage tender process to enable mid-point shortlisting and detailed dialogue to in order to obtain optimum offers on a cost effective proportionate basis for all parties. Please refer to section VI.3 for additional information and timescales. The Operator will be required to provide a market offer from mid-November to 24th December as a minimum with an option of operating earlier in November and into early January. Maximum operating times for the commercial offers will be 0900 hours until 2200 hours and minimum operation times will be 10:00 hours until 18:00 hours. The market must be in operation 7 days a week for the duration of the contract. The operator will be granted 5 days for set up and 2 days for breakdown each year. Bidders must commit to pay the Authority a minimum of £13,000 per annum. This money will be used to contribute towards electricity costs and marketing & promotion costs borne by the Authority. The Authority is also ideally seeking to appoint to an operator/s willing to contribute a further % turnover share payment, although this is not a mandatory requirement. The Supplier must supply any infrastructure required for the offer including huts/cabins/gazebos to be used and is responsible for the set up and removal of these within the agreed set up and breakdown times. Funding may be available via Authority borrowing subject to presentation of a robust business case and provision of contractual guarantees. In respect of types of stalls a minimum of 20 % to a maximum of 40 % may be dedicated to the provision of hot food, a minimum of 20 % must be dedicated to the provision of food and drink gifts and a minimum of 30 % must be dedicated to the provision of other non-perishable gifts. Variant bids may be submitted which vary these % allocations for consideration by the Authority who will have sole discretion on whether or not to proceed any further with the variant offer. Sale of Alcohol for consumption on site can also be part of the overall offer with a total maximum size of 120 m² in Commercial Road. The m² may be allocated to 1 individual bar area or spread across a number of serveries. The Authority hopes to maximise the potential innovation through adopting an open output based specification. Subsequent to this the Authority will manage the contract on a true mutually incentivised partnership basis to ensure that the offer is continually improved over time. The Authority's key objectives for the new offer are: 1. To deliver a clear step change in the quality and range of the Christmas market offer in Portsmouth. 2. To fundamentally change the markets from being visited purely by local people in the City to markets that attract visitors from a wider area and so become a visitor destination in their own right. 3. To ensure markets are central to the new public realm strategy currently being drawn up and highlight their key role in place shaping the city. 4. To ensure that Christmas markets are part of the overall street market strategy for the city. 5. To put in place longer term contracts for markets so that much greater capital investment can be made by the successful contractor. 6. To provide a more comprehensive coverage of Christmas markets in the whole of the City. 7. To ensure Christmas markets reflect the changing demographic in the City e.g. as regards the population increase, the student population diversity and more affluent city dwellers. 8. To ensure Christmas markets reflect and support the high quality local craft and creative sectors in the city. 9. To ensure Christmas markets deliver an offer that is distinctive and is relevant to the different sites across the city. The Authority reserves the right to extend the scope of the contract to cover the management of additional market sites and services across the City, either in whole or in part. Take up of options to extend the scope of the contract will be at the Authority's sole discretion. The Authority will be undertaking a two stage tender process to enable mid-point shortlisting and detailed dialogue to in order to obtain optimum offers on a cost effective proportionate basis for all parties. Please refer to section VI.3 for additional information and timescales. The Operator will be able to provide a market offer from 1st December to 24th December into early January as a maximum. Maximum operating times for the commercial offers will be 0900 hours until 2200 hours and minimum operation times will be 10:00 hours until 1700 hours. The market may be in operation for 7 days a week or could be only open on specific at the option of the bidder. The operator will be granted 5 days for set up and 2 days for breakdown each year. Bidders must commit to pay the Authority a minimum of £7,000 per annum. This money will be used to contribute towards electricity costs and marketing & promotion costs borne by the Authority. The Authority is also ideally seeking to appoint to an operator/s willing to contribute a further % turnover share payment, although this is not a mandatory requirement. The Supplier must supply any infrastructure required for the offer including huts/cabins/gazebos to be used and is responsible for the set up and removal of these within the agreed set up and breakdown times. Funding may be available via Authority borrowing subject to presentation of a robust business case and provision of contractual guarantees. In respect of types of stalls a minimum of 20 % to a maximum of 40 % may be dedicated to the provision of hot food, a minimum of 20 % must be dedicated to the provision of food & drink gifts and a minimum of 30 % must be dedicated to the provision of other non-perishable gifts. Variant bids may be submitted which vary these % allocations for consideration by the Authority who will have sole discretion on whether or not to proceed any further with the variant offer. Sale of Alcohol for consumption on site can also be part of the overall offer with a total maximum size of 60 m² in Palmerston Road Precinct. The m² may be allocated to one individual bar area or spread across a number of serveries.