By Ben Whitfield, Director of Communications at NE1
They are an investment in Newcastle’s future.
Across the UK, the summer events season is ramping up and here in Newcastle, we are a frontrunner in the event stakes. The city enjoys a fantastic programme of award-winning events from music, arts and sports to family-friendly carnivals and vibrant cultural celebrations, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
This is important. Events put a city on the map. They give people reasons to visit, to stay longer and to keep coming back. Newcastle delivers this in volume, with variety, and at scale.
We are almost unique in the UK in having such a comprehensive year-round events calendar, but it is during the summer that the city puts on a fabulous show that sets us apart, not just regionally but nationally.
NE1’s programme of events is a key part of this. These events alone attract hundreds of thousands of visitors into the city and deliver a significant economic boost to surrounding businesses. They create regular attention-grabbing ways to draw people into Newcastle and once here allow them to experience everything the city has to offer.
For many, the arrival of our Grey Street Gathering pocket park signals the start of summer. This splash of greenery adds to the beauty of one of the city’s most iconic streets and provides a welcome space for people to meet and enjoy the city centre.
Other elements of the programme have also become firm fixtures in Newcastle’s summer calendar and at the heart of it all sits Old Eldon Square which each year is transformed into a dedicated free family entertainment zone.
Screen on the Green, Tiny Toon and Stay and Play provide hours of free fun and activities throughout the six-week school holidays. Children can explore Tiny Toon’s miniature Newcastle, while enjoying free outdoor movies at Screen on the Green or making use of the play and relaxation space at the Stay and Play zone. All these attractions encourage families to spend entire days in the city and their popularity continues to grow. Last year, Old Eldon Square’s summer activities attracted a record-breaking 105,000 visits and bagged several national and international awards for NE1 for urban transformation and place making.
While Old Eldon Square provides a daily source of free summer entertainment, NE1 is bringing back the Quayside Carnival in August. A one-day carnival-themed extravaganza which was an instant success when we staged it for the first time last year. More than 10,000 people celebrated in carnival style on the Quayside and this year, we’re bringing it back but bigger and better. It is an event not to be missed.
And August is a busy month for us. We also have NE1’s Newcastle Restaurant Week to look forward to, a much-loved event and a significant date in the summer diary. Last year was the biggest week yet with over 59,000 diners enjoying some of the city’s top restaurants for a fraction of the normal price and delivering a £1 million boost to participating restaurants. The dates for this August will soon be announced so get ready to book.
At the end of the month, we are also hosting Dog on the Tyne for the third year running, turning the Quayside into a mini-Crufts to be enjoyed by dog owners and canine enthusiasts.
NE1 is also proud sponsors of Mela in the City, and Pride which celebrate the city’s diversity and cultural inclusivity with vibrant festivities that fill the city over two weekends.
Rounding off our summer events programme will be our Newcastle Dragon Boat Race in September. This too is coming back bigger and better with more competitors and a new fundraising partnership with the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.
All told last summer, over 200,000 people visited events delivered by or sponsored by NE1, that’s nearly ¼ million people encouraged to visit the city who may otherwise not have come. Their presence added spending on travel, dining, shopping and entertainment across the city.
And our events are only part of Newcastle’s story. The city’s wider activity calendar showcases the breadth on offer, starting with the historic Blaydon Race which got the ball rolling on the 6th June. We also have the world’s largest half marathon, the Great North Run, in September, and the Great North 10k in July. Any other city might consider one large run quite enough!
Away from sport, music provides the other key pillar of the city’s events programme and this summer, Exhibition Park will provide the venue for four-days of major concerts. In the Park festival returns in July with a stellar line up of artists: Lewis Capaldi, Paul Weller and Wolf Alice with Lost Minds Festival on the same site in between.
But there’s more…After a year away, Newcastle City Council is bringing back their Novum festival with culture, creativity and fun filling the city’s streets. Look out for one of the festival highlights, Dominoes, which will transform the city centre into a large-scale domino run with thousands of specially created giant dominoes.
Football fans also have plenty to enjoy with World Cup fan zones, pop-ups and venue takeovers throughout the city during the tournament.
Events are an incredibly important way to position Newcastle as a vibrant city with lots to see and do, they also allow us to compete regionally, nationally and internationally for visitors and give people plenty of reasons to visit for the first time and to keep returning.
Most importantly, events help lock in economic impact. People who attend events here spend here. Whether that’s overnight stays or grabbing a bite to eat while out and about. Our compact city centre and strong retail offer also allows for a quick shopping trip. By bringing people into the city to enjoy a specific event we are guaranteeing spending in surrounding businesses and in times like these, every visitor counts.
Newcastle is in an enviable position with such a stacked events calendar, and the impact is why we invest so much time and energy delivering them. Poised as we are on the eve of another major summer season, we are looking forward to welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city to enjoy everything that’s on offer.
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