Last week, Downtown in Business hosted our final event of the year. We were delighted to be joined by Claire McColgan, the woman who led Liverpool’s successful bid to host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest.
Claire is the Director of Culture in Liverpool and she spoke about the incredible transformation that the city has been through over the past 30 years. Whilst the main focus of the discussion was based around the excitement of Eurovision, Claire also discussed what makes Liverpool special and why the city deserves more opportunities in the future.
Claire discussed the cities Capital of Culture win and since then, Liverpool have used culture as the tool to the city, which of course, helped with the win of the Eurovision bid. She mentioned how the audience in Liverpool is unique and that after the 2008 Capital of Culture win, the city partied whilst everyone else went into recession.
The discussion continued and Claire spoke about how deadlines in this city work really well. Once Liverpool has a goal in mind, it helps the city to focus and make progress within the set timeframe. An example of this is the Arena, Liverpool One and now, Eurovision.
Finally, Claire mentioned how Businesses within the city now need to ensure they are using Eurovision to their advantage. Businesses need to make sure they are using this huge promotion of the city to show the rest of the world what makes Liverpool great. Whilst Eurovision is the next big event, Claire isn’t letting that stop her from thinking about the future. She wants to make certain that the city continues to grow and improve, whilst keeping culture at the centre of it all.
