More than eighty business people gathered at the Cunard Building last night for the first Mayoral 100 Club event, an initiative designed to encourage businesses across the city region to help develop the International Mersey River Festival 2015, taking place this summer.
The Albert Dock were first to sign up as a member of the scheme, with many more businesses following suit. They include Fraser Wealth Management, Your Housing Group, Peel, Home Bargains, Bibby Line Group, Baltic Creative, Health@work, Medicash, Love2shop, Quantum of value, Stena Line, Wild Thang, The Contact Company, Laing O’Rourke, Weber Shandwick, Liverpool One, Heritage Great Britain and Cabfind.com.
Membership fees from those businesses who do sign up will be used to enhance and sustain the event and develop opportunities to showcase Liverpool’s unique waterfront to the world. Members of the 100 Club will also receive core benefits including business to business networking events, a VIP hospitality experience at the festival, member newsletters, use of the club logo and branding opportunities.
Last year’s festival attracted crowds of around 200,000 across the weekend, who turned out in force for a packed programme of events at the Pier Head, as fleets of vessels sailed into the city. The full International Mersey River Festival programme will be launched in March 2015, which includes The Northern Boat Show.
Mayor Joe Anderson has made a commitment to make the event one of the biggest maritime celebrations in the UK, but recognises the need to enlist the support of external businesses. He said:
“Culture and free cultural activities are hugely important to this city, and the International Mersey River Festival is certainly one of the most popular in our events calendar.
“However, we need to think differently about how we fund these events as we can’t achieve our ambitions with the city council being solely responsible for the financial support.
“We have seen with the likes of the giants and the music festival, that there is a real appetite from external organisations to be part of events – they recognise that as a city, we excel when it comes to staging outdoor events and as a result hundreds of thousands of people come and spend time and money in Liverpool.
“This positive economic impact benefits the city, creates jobs and, equally as important, generates a feel-good factor in the city which is massively important during these times of austerity.
“We’re delighted to be welcoming The Northern Boat Show on board this year and excited about opportunities this brings in terms of growing the festival in the future.”