The Eurovision Song Contest gave a £54million economic boost to the Liverpool City Region. The results from reports looking at the impact have been unveiled at an event in the ACC. Liverpool Calling has brought together the teams that curated and delivered those unforgettable two weeks in May.
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00:00 In May, Liverpool presented the party to end all parties, when on behalf of Ukraine, the city hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.
00:11 It's now been revealed that it delivered a £54 million economic boost to the city region.
00:18 We think about, okay, yeah, it was fantastic in the city and the city centre. We engaged with over 260 organisations across the region as well, who delivered fantastic events locally in our communities.
00:31 And that buzz and that feel, it was just phenomenal. Actually, one of my favourite memories from Eurovision was in my own patch in Notty Ash, in one of our local schools.
00:42 And it was just the celebration that they put on, and signing the Ukrainian national anthem. It was just, you know, it was beautiful.
00:51 And we really want to build on that. This was a first for Eurovision, you know, an educational programme, a community programme, a cultural festival.
01:00 You know, we want people to build on that. We don't want that to end. We've put Liverpool's stamp on Eurovision.
01:07 A multi-agency evaluation steering group, led by Liverpool City Council, commissioned five in-depth independent evaluations.
01:15 The results were presented to around 1,000 people at the ACC Liverpool on Thursday.
01:21 You know, the world that we're in at the moment, there's not much joy. And just to look at those pictures of two weeks here in Liverpool, where it was all like in a complete bubble for those two weeks,
01:29 where people, you know, countries met together and shook hands and hugged each other. It was just the most incredible time, really.
01:36 And I think that that's what I was really pleased that we talked about today as well.
01:42 So we know what the, we've heard today what the economic impact is, and that's, you know, hard cash going back into the economy from people who came to the city.
01:49 But there's more than that about events. You know, events create memories, and they create that sense of coming together.
01:54 And that's why we do them here. We know the economic benefit in this city. We get it completely.
02:00 We very much underestimated it for Eurovision, but we get the economic impact.
02:05 What is harder to measure is that absolute memory that you're creating in a city when you put on something like Eurovision.
02:12 And I think there'll be people who carry this city with them in their hearts for years, actually.
02:17 The three live BBC shows were watched by 162 million people worldwide.
02:23 Whilst there was a huge amount of pride around Liverpool being the host city, with 80% of residents noting how important it was,
02:30 and a further 93% saying they were pleased with how the city delivered it.
02:36 The results for Liverpool are absolutely fantastic. When we think about as a city council, we put £2 million into Eurovision,
02:45 thought it would generate £20 million for the local economy. It's actually the best part of £55 million that we've received.
02:52 We know during the Eurovision week, we had half a million visitors to the city,
02:58 really throwing themselves into the fantastic cultural and music and party events that we had.