452 - Night-Time Economy Project (Two-Year Pilot Programme)

Tender description

<p>To address the night-time economy challenges that face our town centres, Wigan Council will use £135k of the UKSPF allocation to deliver a 2-year pilot programme, working with four independent businesses in high streets across the borough to grow new creative hubs, working collaboratively to deliver an exciting live cultural programme to bridge the retail and night-time economy. The aims of the programme are to: • Increase footfall across four high streets in the borough for an early evening offer. • Support the transition of audiences from a daytime to night-time economy. • Support local business and encourage the trialling of new business models. • Promote and platform local creative talent. • Raise the profile of the cultural offer across the borough. The programme will comprise five elements: • Appointment of a programme manager who will drive the programme, collaborate with the independent businesses to devise a live programme across the venues and establish mutually beneficial partnerships with existing night-time businesses. • Capital works to each of the venues to support the provision of live cultural programme (physical and equipment). • Artistic programme – with a focus on platforming local talent • Marketing • Evaluation Wigan has a burgeoning music scene and the promotion of live music with a focus on local talent will be at the heart of the programming, with scope to intersperse this with a wider live performance offer based on the needs/interests of the target audiences. Activity will take place on Friday’s, frequency, and model for the events to be confirmed with the participating businesses. Outside the scope of this programme, the culture team will look to maximise the cultural opportunities through these newly created hubs by working with the venues to plug in additional activity e.g. Open Eye Hub, this way further establishing the locations as known creative spaces and to encourage further increased footfall. This pilot programme will draw on the experience and expertise of the Snug team but will require an audience development plan that is focused on attracting a primary audience that doesn’t currently engage with the high streets in the identified areas during the times that the programme is planned to take place. It is envisaged that the primary target audience for the programme will be young people between the ages of 16-24, and those working in or near the high streets selected. The audience development plan will consider the needs of these and other identified audiences to devise activities that target these audiences.</p> Keywords: Night Economy, Local talent, Pilot Programme