Tall Ships: Best Event in England Tourism Awards?

[christine blakey]

People think that this is something that should be put to bed, well this shows the demon is alive and kicking.

Other efforts in the country will have missed out.  Totally wrong.

Let us list here the good, the bad and the ugly about this event.

Top of the list is we would have got just as much publicity if we had saved money on hospitality.  If we had curbed that, I would be singing from the roof tops about it's slendor.  However with huge amounts of hospitality (including bottles of wine which those invited took home in their bags) for a select few, this event was simply 'Hey big Spendor'!

[rabbit]

Sounds like another "jolly night out"

"As in the past VisitEngland will be inviting guests to enjoy a black-tie dinner followed by the Awards Ceremony. The cream of England's tourism will sample the best of English cuisine and toast the success of the finalists with the finest English wines."

The finalists are:

Tourism Event of the Year

Aintree John Smiths Grand National, Liverpool, Merseyside
www.aintree.co.uk

Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, Bristol
www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk

City Events - Polo in the Park, London
www.polointheparklondon.com

Larkin with Toads, Yorkshire
www.larkin25.co.uk

The Tall Ships, Hartlepool
www.destinationhartlepool.com"

see http://www.visitenglandawards.org/awards.html

We must stand half a chance!

[christine blakey]

More like a Black Lie Dinner...yet another one!

[steveL]

Surely this should be about events held in 2011 - not 2010.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

More like a Black Lie Dinner...yet another one!

Ah well, it's all practice at using a knife and fork! P.S. If it's a formal bash, does Mr. Drummond wear a 'monkey suit'? 

[notinshadow]

The best party the town has ever thrown, what a p**s-up!! Hartlepool will easily win this and rightly so, why else would you spend a couple of million pounds if you didn't want to gain something, this must be the something.

[christine blakey]

The fact is that they did not need to spend as much on this.  They simply took the opportunity because they had a never ending cooking pot of our cash.

The event was badly managed, when evaluating it independently.

The reports that were paid to make it look great were biased and this should be enough to prevent an award of any sort.  It could even be classed as fraud!  After all we are talking about a huge overspend and chaos through hospitality and poor planning.

So yet another dark shadow area, which should be looked at by the Police.  However, our Police Force would not want their statistics to rise any as they are wanting to win Police Force of the Year 2013 (unlucky for us)!

You are correct in noting also that this is out of date, why 2010? 

However you reap what you soe and just as they try to get more mileage out of it, they should expect people who care about the town being furious and writing about it here.  If anyone wants to know more about the bias in reporting, please contact me.

[steveL]

Is there going to be a Maritime Festival this year? Haven't heard anything so far but wasn't it supposed to be a bi-annual event?

[christine blakey]

Think they will hop on with the Jubilee events.

[MkI]

Congratulations are due for being nominated, well done HBC for what was a fantastic event.

It's a bit sad to read bitter people moaning about the fact that the event cost a couple of quid as it was worth it, and this nomination proves that it was worth it. 

Why do some people just have to moan all of the time, and purvey the attitude that they could do everything and anything better than anybody else?  Have they got nothing better or more worthwhile to do in their lives than try and knock the achievements of others?

[marky]

It's not the event that people complain about, it's the fact that we were told that it would costing us £800,000 and it ended up cost us £2.1m.

I went to the event and enjoyed every minute of it but if you're suggesting that it was properly run by professionals who knew how to work to a budget then forget it.
Put it this way, if at the beginning we were told that it would cost the town £2.1 would people have been so keen. As it was, the total cost of £4m (including grants from OneNorthEast etc) made it the most expensive Tall Ships ever organised in the UK - far more expensive than Newcastle and more expensive than others by quite a margin.
So it's not the event that people complain of but the lack of cost proper control. We could (and should) have had exactly the same event for less money if those organising it had been of a higher calibre.
There will always be those who say that that simply constitutes whining which goes a long way to explaining why HBC is now effectively broke.

[fred c]

Is this MkI... a different mk1 to the original mk1.... or has the original mk1 changed his Nik... to MkI ?

[fred c]

Thank goodness that little conundrum has been cleared up.....

[mk1]

Is this MkI... a different mk1 to the original mk1.... or has the original mk1 changed his Nik... to MkI ?

An inferior mind trying to grab some instant credibility and my very own  fart catcher!
The pretender  has since morphed into another identity...........

[notinshadow]

We like Michelle's daughter posting here!