Unbeatable value for money in city’s lavish ’08 souvenir guide

Apr 30 2008 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

BY ANY reasonable measure, the cover price of the official Liverpool 08 Yearbook makes no business sense at all.

For £5, we get a lavishly produced, beautifully illustrated keepsake packed full of facts, key dates and all the events forming part of what's turning out to be a very special year for the city.

Somebody, somewhere, is underwriting the costs of this record-breaking book.

And all credit to them.

In doing so, they are extending the reach of the ’08 programme to a far wider and diverse audience than many would have envisaged. And that's clearly a goal which has been pushed up the Culture Company's agenda since various personnel changes left us with the line up we now have.

Sales of the yearbook have been high, and it's not surprising. More impressive, though, than even this achievement has been the way Liverpool's attractions have found themselves welcoming significantly increased numbers of visitors.

I suspect the definition of a visitor in this context has been worked on by those compiling the figures.

If I set off from home in south Liverpool with my wife and family for an afternoon at World Museum Liverpool, we most certainly are visitors to the National Museums Liverpool flagship, but we are not visitors to Liverpool in the sense that we've stepped off a budget flight at John Lennon Airport, paid a taxi driver the fare to town and a hotel to put us up for a short break.

So, a little bit of caution is to be applied to some of the figures being bandied about by those with an interest in seeing the big numbers if not the big picture.

But credit where it's due: If the extra footfall reported by the gatekeepers of our cultural institutions is generated, in part by the whole ’08 feel good factor, where's the problem?

As long as people are engaged and deriving some sense of pride and pleasure in what's happening in Liverpool this year, we are on a winner.

For businesses, these benefits may be slightly harder to define. But perhaps we need to realise we are in a long game here.

European Capital of Culture may end on New Year's Eve.

But, after a year-long programme like the one we are hosting – and the way in which it changes external perceptions of this city's reputation and capacity to deliver – we can look forward to some long-term wins, too.

And when the lights finally go out on our big year, we'll still have our yearbooks to thumb through. Best fiver you'll spend this year.

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group