By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
There are ambitions to make Gloucester’s Tall Ships festival a longer event spanning more than one weekend, available for all and without barriers in 2027.
Gloucester City Council leaders have taken on board feedback after last year’s event at the Docks which saw the introduction of “confusing” barriers and tickets.
They say the Tall Ships format will be reimagined in 2027 as part of a city-wide cultural programme to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the opening of Gloucester Docks.
The next event will take inspiration from the city’s maritime history and how its port connects the city with the wider world, building on the themes from the Tall Ships Festival over the last 20 years.
A report discussed by cabinet at North Warehouse on Wednesday night (January 15) said some customers who had attended the Tall Ships in previous years had a negative response to this year’s event as it was perceived as too different from their recollections of previous events.
Barriers and tickets were confusing for some who may not have attended recent festivals, the report said.
But overall the council received generally positive feedback from customers who were new to the event and who had been attracted by the specific offer communicated.
And the spring bank holiday weekend event last year generated an extra £337,000 for the local economy.
Total income from the event was £333,339 while, of this, ticket sales generated £171,471.
However, the event which cost £450,345 ran at a loss for the City Council of £117,000.
The report says the council had set an over-optimistic target of selling more than 25,00 tickets as a total 17,068 tickets were sold in total.
Culture and leisure cabinet member Caroline Courtney (LD, Tuffley) presented the report at the council meeting.
She said the team delivered the Tall Ships event in-house for the first time last year. “This was a huge endeavour on a very short timescale,” she said.
“In many ways it was successful. It sold over 17,000 tickets and we platformed some local and emerging artists.
“Feedback from people who attended the event itself was generally quite positive. It contributed an estimated economic impact of an additional £337,000 to the local economy just over that weekend.
“However, it is clear the format of the event as a closed festival site with a heavy reliance on ticket income trying to cover the increasing high costs of putting on an event of this scale and the short lead time the team had to generate sponsorship income is not the format we would want to continue with.
“Our recommendation is we explore a new format from the event in future which is more financially sustainable.”
She said the next event will be a very different format to previous Tall Ships events.
“We will be taking the things people have enjoyed from the Tall Ships over the last 20 years but we will reimagine them and curate a different programme. Hopefully this will give us a template we can use for future events.”
Taking place in 2027, the anniversary aims to feature a series of events and activities across the year that could include performances, community events, public art, and opportunities for creative expression for people across the city.
Council leaders hope that the celebration in 2027 will include every ward of Gloucester, helping to foster greater connection with the waterways.
The partnership, made up of community groups and cultural organisations, hope to encourage vessels to visit and moor in Gloucester all year round during the anniversary year, so people can experience tall ships whenever they visit the Docks.
Taking inspiration from other ambitious festivals such as the six-month cultural programme that was part of Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the Plymouth Mayflower 400, the partnership is keen that the Docks’ 200th anniversary is created with the people of Gloucester, is accessible by every community, and leaves a lasting legacy for the city.
Planning for the anniversary programme is part of a review of festivals and events being undertaken by Gloucester City Council, which hopes to increase the number and variety of events that take place across the cultural calendar, through supporting local organisations and producers to access funding to stage their own events.
The review follows the launch of the Together Gloucester initiative with Gloucester Culture Trust and other local partners which has set out to create a more collaborative approach to producing cultural events in the city and give local people more say in what is staged.
People interested in obtaining funding and support for a cultural event in Gloucester can find information and current funding opportunities through Together Gloucester here.