Capital of Culture Update: Liverpool celebrates the local boys

The people of Liverpool will be delighted to know the money they've spent underwriting the Paul McCartney celebration of all things Liverpool is going to be well spent promoting local talent, like, erm The Kaiser Chiefs. There are a million bands in Liverpool, and for some reason they've had to ask a Leeds act to be the support. Funny that.

Meanwhile, a bunch of extra tickets are being made available for the gig:

Five hundred of the tickets - dubbed the best seats in the house - are being made available to charities and community groups in the city.

Organisers hope the £75 tickets could be offered as competition prizes to help the groups raise money.

Well, that is a fine gesture - giving a bunch of tickets to charities and communities to help them raise funs.

Sorry, did we say "give"? It turns out the phrasing of "made available" was carefully chosen:

Phil Redmond, creative director of the Liverpool Culture Company, said the tickets could not simply be given away.

"We just have to make sure that the box office numbers stack up," he said.

"We are actually offering the best seats in the house for community groups to buy and then they should be able to sell or raffle them off."

Yes, having screwed up the money so badly that local council tax payers are having to put their hands deeply into their pocket to keep the thing going, now they've decided they need to try and balance the books by taking money off charities for the tickets. Charming.

[Thanks to Jim M for the link]