Mathew Street may be permanently blown out

After a weekend in which high winds closed the festival down, more grim news for the Mathew Street Festival: it's got a massive budget problem. The Liverpool Echo explains:

The ECHO can reveal that of the £800,000 cost to stage the festival, Liverpool council has half funded Mathew Street with European money since 2005.

But next year that funding – part of the package from being European Capital of Culture in 2008 – will no longer be available.

Cabinet member for leisure and tourism Cllr Wendy Simon said the council is currently reviewing its events programme including the Mathew Street Festival.

She said: "At the moment no decisions have yet been taken about Mathew Street or the events programme as a whole."

There is a suggestion that the outdoor bits be dropped, returning the event to its roots of being pubs round the area banding together to put on a bunch of shows during the days - which was the solution forced on this year's festival by the weather.

Local businesses do pretty well out of the event. But although 500 were asked to contribute this year, only 20 did so. Doesn't suggest there might be much enthusiasm from the private sector to pick up the funding gap.

Mathew Street blown off

After Creamfields sunk under the weight of the Cheshire rain, high winds have done for the Mathew Street festival.

Although all the indoor bits will still happen, the outdoor focus of the festival has been pulled:

Councillor Wendy Simon, Liverpool City Council's cabinet member for culture and tourism, said: "It's when you mix rain and heavy wind that you have got the risk of barriers broken down, street signs and the potential for flying objects.

"And when you have got a lot of people in a small place moving quickly you then risk crushing and people being trampled, and we are not prepared to risk that."

I think after some of the disasters we've seen in the last couple of years at festivals ploughing on in the face of bad weather, you'd have to agree that taking a cautious approach is sensible. But I'm still struggling to make sense of "you have got the risk of street signs".

Mathew Street festival target of cuts

Amongst the ideas being toyed with to satisfy Eric Pickle's cuts to the Liverpool council budget is the axing of the Mathew Street Festival. The festival which, in 2010, brought £20million into the local economy.

Mathew Street experiments with tip-box style free event

The Mathew Street Festival in Liverpool has always been free, but times are tough.

So this year, they're trying to find a way to keep the event free. People going will be invited to buy a wristband for £3 which will... well, give you a wristband.

For a festival largely built out of groups pretending to be other groups, this is a wristband pretending to be a Festival Wristband. A tribute 'band for tribute bands.

But it's a nicer idea than the other way of barking up some funds, which is to create a VIP zone:

Tickets cost £25 a day and include a couple of complimentary drinks, laid back live entertainment, invitations to the after-party and loos without the queues.

There will also be a special zone where guests can be pampered and have their hair and make-up refreshed.

The VIP bar and terrace enclosure will be in Victoria Street Car Park, next to the Sir Thomas Hotel – so far enough to escape the madding crowds, but close enough to jump straight back into the festival action.

That's exactly what Liverpool needs right now - a spot of 'them and us' barrier building, and turning a free festival into an event which you need money to get the 'full' experience.

Summer Pops 2009: As exciting as a Q back issue

James M emails with news of next year's Summer Pops festival in Liverpool. He's not that thrilled:

So much for Liverpool moving on from its culture of nostalgia, Simon. "Beatle Day" looks set to be an annual orgy of reminiscing. Charities may well benefit, but that misses the point.

Last year's Capital of Culture was a largely wasted opportunity; local, unsigned bands were, contrary to all the official noises, treated as an afterthought as both "Beatle Day" & the Matthew Street festival wallowed in nostalgia for a band which split up 40 years ago.

The acts so far lined up for the Summer Pops also make a mockery of the Echo's
headline.

The Echo headline in question is:

Summer Pops 2009 set to be Liverpool's biggest and best yet

Bearing in mind that in previous years' pops have pulled in stars from Steely Dan, The Sugababes, Diana Ross and James 'not to everyone's tastes but unarguably a strong booking' Morrison, this year's must be quite something, right?

To get the ball rolling he has announced a list of perennial Liverpool favourites, The Australian Pink Floyd, Jools Holland, Simply Red and Deacon Blue.

The Australian Pink Floyd? Cancel the plane tickets, I'm summering on Merseyside...

James, you'd have to agree, has a point.

Mathew returns

After last year's Mathew Street debacle - and I'm not sure anyone is any the clearer as to how the council managed to screw it up so spectacularly - this year, the event is back (or at least is planned to be.) James M brought the announcement to our attention:

Liverpool's "year of culture" goes from bad to worse. Bill Heckle, director of the Matthew Street festival claims to have listened to the public. I presume that's "listened" in the Gordon Brown sense of the word. Right Said Fred? Chas & Dave? Both are nostalgia/tribute acts in themselves. As for the stage given over to local unsigned acts, that was done at the previous festival in 2006; a stage stuck out at the Pier Head, separated from the rest of the city centre. Moreover, the space given over in Williamson Square to local hip-hop acts seems insultingly tokenistic. Ah, well, never mind. If we get bored of yeah, yeah, yeahs & mop top wigs, there's always the Kaiser Thiefs, Antarctic Monkeys & Absolute Bowie, eh?

The strangest announced act is Amy Wynehouse - which is less a tribute act, more like one of those supermarket own-brands that try to pass themselves off as a proper brand by making the smallest possible changes to the packaging. Thay are also billing Cher, which we're guessing might not be the real thing.

Capital of Culture Update: Liverpudlian complains about being left out

Strange times indeed: Yesterday's Guardian letters page included a complaint from Liverpool that the paper's guide to festivals omitted one:

What a comprehensive list of festivals were featured in your supplement on May 31. Yet you managed to omit Liverpool's Mathew Street music festival, on August bank holiday weekend, reputedly Europe's largest free music festival.

You'd have thought the writer, Lib Dem councillor Paul Clein, would have been well aware that last year's event was canceled at the last minute and so doesn't make much sense to be included in a long-term listings guide. Indeed, wasn't it the fall-out from last year's massive bungle that contributed to him quitting as council education tsar?

Capital of Culture Update: Liverpool pays up

A couple of days ago, an anguished Paul Clein, Lib Dem city councilor from Liverpool, wrote the Guardian to defend his team's record:

John Healey's claim that Liverpool city council tops the league of inefficient councils is blatantly partisan and contradicted by the evidence.

Here's some blatantly partisan evidence for you to consider. The doughty council tax payers of the city are having their pockets picked to find a quarter of a million to pay off Jason 'Beg, Steal or' Harborow, former head of the Liverpool Culture Company. Harborow fell out with council leader - we're using leader in an ironic sense here - Warren Bradley after the mismanagement of the Mathew Street Festival came to light earlier in the year.

It's not entirely clear if the quarter of a million quid will come from the £20m hole in the Capital of Culture finanaces, or if it will be added to the size of that hole.

Mathew Street report: it's a secret

The murky background to the pulling of the Mathew Street Festival - and the claims that senior figures knew the event was going to be axed as early as February - is thickening rather than clearing.

Despite having ordered an internal - rather than independent - enquiry, Liverpool council leader Warren Bradley has refused to let anyone see the finished report as he feels an urge to "correct inaccuracies" in it. A version with "corrections" has been published, but now, somewhat grudgingly, council chief executive Colin Hilton has said the original might be opened.

Once.

To Labour opposition leader Joe Anderson.

But only under the sort of conditions usually reserved for rare books in the Bodleian Library:

Colin Hilton has said he is considering letting Labour’s Cllr Anderson read the original document in the presence of town hall finance chief Phil Halsall and standards committee chairman Howard Winik.

In a letter to Cllr Anderson, Mr Hilton said: “I am asking the monitoring officer to consider a facilitated reading of that document on a strictly private and confidential basis.”

What's the point of that? So Anderson can know what the original report said, but not tell anyone?

Bradley should have the courage to publish the original version - with his "corrected inaccuracies" alongside, if he so wishes. It's time Liverpool City Council remembered it's meant to be a democrat body answerable to its citizenry rather than a privately-owned entertainment industry.

Mathew Street cancellation: who knew what when?

An email which appears on the Liverpool Subculture blog, apparently from Chris Green at the Liverpool Culture Company, suggests that plans to axe the Mathew Street Festival were being laid back in February, and that the key figures in the city knew that Mathew Street wouldn't be going ahead long before the public announcement. Such curious goings-on in the city.

Mathew Street report being "amended"

Liverpool City Council's report into the expensive screw-up which saw the Mathew Street Festival being axed a couple of weeks ahead of the event has been completed.

So, what does it say?

Erm... we don't know, as Council Leader Warren Bradley is sitting on it while he makes 'amendments' to the findings. It probably doesn't matter much - Bradley's refusal to allow an independent investigation into the PR and financial disaster that befell one of the key events of the city's 700th birthday party means it probably doesn't make much difference if he changes every word of the report.

Mathew Street: Bradley orders internal inquiry

It looks like Warren Bradley has held on to his job, despite the Mathew Street Festival fiasco in Liverpool. He's ordered an internal whitewash inquiry into his council's inability to organise the Festival, and the last-minute late cancellation. Of course, it might not be a whitewash, but considering the amount of damage the late dropping of the event could have done to the local economy, at the very leats an independent investigation might look a little more open.

Mathew Street screw-up threatens Liverpool Council head

Liverpool City Council leader Warrern Bradley is facing a no-confidence motion at tonight's council meeting, following his part in the costly last-minute cancellation of the Mathew Street Festival.

Somewhat surprisingly, Bradley is trying to suggest that his confidence or lack of it to head up the council shouldn't be an issue because there are more important matters to discuss:

Cllr Bradley said he had no intention of stepping down, describing the call as a “political stunt”.

He claimed it detracted from issues such as a debate on tackling gun crime after the death of Rhys Jones, which was due to take place at the town hall meeting.

You have to love the logic of a man who won't accept criticism of the way the city he is the leader of is heading because they've got to find time to talk about the gangs of youths running round with guns and the murder of eleven year-old kids on the street. The casual observer might wonder if, in fact, the gun crime in the city is another symptom of weak leadership rather than something of itself, and if a man who is incapable of organising a few Beatles tribute acts and a bit of a street party is going to have the skills the "city of culture" needs to get through 2008 with a more, rather than less, positive public image at the end of it.

Mathew Street Festival axed by City of Culture

Perhaps inevitably, Liverpool's managed to screw up another one of its major events, pulling the Mathew Street Festival citing building work as the cause:

Jason Harborow, chief executive of the Liverpool Culture Company, said in a statement: “In many ways, the Mathew Street Festival has become a victim of its own success this year. The huge growth in the popularity of the festival, combined with the loss of the Pier Head, presented us with a massive problem.

“The advice relates specifically to the unique conditions surrounding the staging of the Mathew Street Festival this year, and does not affect the city’s ability to stage other large-scale events.”

Oh, really? 2007 is meant to be a big party year for Liverpool as well, being the 800th anniversary of the place - and they've just axed the biggest event the city hosts. Whether or not this affects the city's ability to stage other events simply misses the point - the 2005 festival generated £32million for the local economy, according to the Culture Company's own figures, and to pull the 2007 event with just a few week's notice looks suspiciously like a massive disaster from where we're sitting.

The building work, supposedly, is meant to be making the city ready for its spell as Capital of Culture, which raises the question of why shiny new branches of Debenhams and the like are meant to be better for the cultural life of the city than, you know, actual culture.