Tall Ships: Best Event in England Tourism Awards?

[The Shadow]

You will find that Stage Coach took the buses off because the subsidy was stripped.

Two questions for you then.
1. What was Stagecoach's annual profits last year?

Once you have the answer to the above...

2. Why should HBC subsidise Stagecoach to the tune of £300,000 p/a when as a private, profit making company, they are doing so very well?

Surely if Stagecoach were such a respectable company with the public interest at heart they would subsidise the evening routes with the money they make during the daytime hours.

[Julie noted]

'Raising the profile of the town'?
I was in a hotel in Harrogate a week ago and upon registering, the receptionist asked me where Hartlepool was! I made the usual joke about being 'God's allotment' and she turned to the assistant manager and asked him if he knew.
He stated it was somewhere up by Newcastle. 
OK, not much of a 'survey' I agree but if two people in the 'trade' are unaware of Hpool, despite the Tall Stories debacle, I surmise our profile wasn't raised as high as some proclaim. 
I liken it to Newcastle's Tall Ships event;
Enjoyable, but do I keep going back to Newcastle because of it? No.
This town hasn't seen the visitors, businesses boom, job creation either!
It was akin to going to Bali for your holidays...you spend the rest of the year paying off your credit card! 

[steveL]

The problem with the Tall Ships was never the event itself, which everyone enjoyed, but the way that it was managed and organised and ran so much over budget.

It was a colossal error of judgement to base the level of spending on estimates of the income earned from Park 'n'Ride; estimates which turned out to be incorrect by a factor of 6. Just think about that for a moment - only 1/6th of the cars predicted paid the £10 Park'n'Ride fee. This was way beyond an acceptable margin of error and yet all spending was based on this 'pie-in-the-sky' estimate.

Let's refresh our memories a little.

HBC had allocated £800,000 to spend on the event. When they approached the insurance companies to cover the risk of the event being washed out by bad weather, those insurance companies refused to provide cover because they could see no sound basis for the estimates of visitor numbers provided by HBC.

The Council then decided to put aside an extra £500,000 from its reserves as a way of providing their own insurance - this £500,000 wouldn't be needed if the weather was fine and the numbers predicted turned up.

Even though the weather was fine, only one sixth of the cars did turn up, the Park'n'Ride fields were virtually empty, the income generated therefore fell well short of estimates and consequently not only was the £500,000 needed to fill the gap but the council still found itself £720,000 short of covering its costs.

Remember, this was not the local workies club organising this event. People had been brought in specially on big salaries because of their 'skills and experience' of organising similar events - and they had over 3 years to do it.. With hindsight, the worky club committee may have been the better option.

Financially, it was a disaster for the town and at a total cost of over £4m, the event proved to be the most expensive Tall Ships Event ever in the UK - a record it still holds.

The spin that followed was incredible from the multiple counting of the same visitors to the £26.5m sloshing around Hartlepool somewhere.

And do remember . . . the incompetents who organised it will be the very same people attending any awards ceremony congratulating each other on a job well done.

[MkI]

Financially, it was a disaster for the town and at a total cost of over £4m, the event proved to be the most expensive Tall Ships Event ever in the UK - a record it still holds.

How many other Tall Ships Events have there been anywhere in the UK since?

[testing times]

I'm afraid I've become bored with this subject, I just want someone to tell me we'll never make the same mistakes again.

[christine blakey]

Just noting about StageCoach as the point has been missed.

What is key is that in the budget meetings to set the areas to cut, the Councillors admitted that the subsidy was sickly SO why did they need a new government to cut budgets in order to realise that this subsidy was disgraceful.

If no budget cuts had been set, Stage Coach would be still driving around non-profitable routes for nearly £300,000 per year.  This is bad management to the tune of our £300,000

And on top of £2 million frittered away on parties for the few as the expense of all of the residents.

Goodness me, and some people on here think they have a point of order in supporting a few people who have spent our money as if it is a neverending supply!

[The Shadow]

Just noting about StageCoach as the point has been missed.

What is key is that in the budget meetings to set the areas to cut, the Councillors admitted that the subsidy was sickly SO why did they need a new government to cut budgets in order to realise that this subsidy was disgraceful.

Probably had something to do with 13 years of having the Champagne Socialist Party in government with their tax and spend, spend, spend policy.

[not4me]

I think this has been flogged to death many times before. A little humility that mistakes were made would have helped but all we got was spin and a cover up so my own view is that although I enjoyed the event, I would like to see the same people organise another one - a case of lessons not learnt.

[notinshadow]

I totally agree with you, if you change the "Would" to Wouldn't!!

[christine blakey]

Spot on SteveL, notinshadow and not4me though I think not4me did mean that those organising event shouldn't, so why did someone get a full time job after a fixed term contract whilst excellent staff got their P45?

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

I have just been on holiday in the borders.

When asked where I come from I got the follow up ...oh that is where they hung the monkey and then the 'John Darwin thing' gets a mention.

Not once did anybody mention the tall ships in the context of Hartlepool.

Just goes to show how ineffective spending that money was in raising our town profile.
I also fail to see one area in our town that was improved in the long term.
The yellow lines appear to have been the only visible legacy.

[notinshadow]

S.O.S.D

Whilst out of town, I never hear about the Tall Ships, when Hartlepool is mentioned,

Agreed the monkey wins it every time, with Darwin in second place followed by the town that elected the monkey..

What is this towns problem with monkeys, monkey's have made this town a laughing stock for hundreds of years now and it needs to stop.

[rabbit]

You may have not seen this news item re the success of the Durham Lumiere Festival. Pro rata it seems to have produced a similar return to their local economy as did the Big Ships thingy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-17674458

Note that an independent review was also carried out to judge the success of the festival.

My question is, if these events produce such positive financial results, why don`t the government give each council/area some dosh to arrange such festivals in the future as it clearly is a win win situation for local economies???

[not4me]

sorry everyone, a bit of a serious typo there but I seem to have lost the option of editing it to put it right. 

[christine blakey]

The Independent Evaluation is biased.

The contact person/s for the Consultant who get huge amounts of money is linked to who managed the event.

Then the Event Organisers demand that they consider their figures and not to viere off from that.

Therefore the reports are simply a money making scam for the researchers and a pat on the back for the organisers so they are not sacked for gross misconduct.

So it is wrong that the reports are seen as an evalution