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First Euro Fest for Liverpool
Scheduled across two consecutive Sundays in two city centre sites – Williamson Square and Queens Square - the Euro Fest featured performers from all over Europe who joined forces with European artists based in Liverpool. Together they animated the city centre and helped entertain shoppers, visitors and sight seers throughout the day in a lively multi-cultural experience.
Lee Forde, general manager of Events for Liverpool Culture Company explained: “The Euro Fest idea is to promote a cultural exchange that ties us more closely to Europe.” Artists appearing included guests from former European Capital of Culture Riga in Latvia, and Cork in Ireland, the 2005 winner.
Onstage were the Dandari Riga Folklore group (traditional Latvian music and dance), The Cork Irish Dance company (traditional and contemporary dance), Orpheus (traditional Greek music and dance), the Funki Feathers (French and Italian dance), Liverpool Capoeira Dancers (a Brazilian blend of martial arts and dance) and Ballet Entredanzas – a renowned Spanish Flamenco dance troup.
Forde has been wanting to utilize the City’s numerous squares for some time. “There’s massive potential in all these spaces, and the ongoing regeneration programme is creating more spaces all the time. We’d also like the street culture, art and performance that’s inherent in several other European cities like Paris and Barcelona to have a place in Liverpool,” he says. The city centre spaces all lend themselves naturally as gathering and meeting places.
And that was exactly what happened, with an estimated 3000 people enjoying the performance programmes throughout the day, adding a new dimension to their Sunday. It also boosted trade in the eating, drinking and retail outlets in the area as people stopped to catch a show or two, or returned later to imbibe in some performance.
Children’s entertainment included flag painting, and plenty also amused themselves playing various interactive games running through the new Williamson Square fountain.
The line ups on the two stages rotated from 11.30 a.m. to mid afternoon in an action packed schedule.
Williamson square featured a ‘truck’ stage with a roof supplied by Daytona, and in Queen’s Square, an open stage was supplied by local company Nasa. In Queen’s Square the Marriot Hotel and the various restaurants were extremely supportive and offered their power and facilities for artists changing rooms and green rooms. “Most people in the areas around the squares have been totally up for it,” says Forde.
Ballet Entredanzas also had a busy week in between shows days – they performed at Spanish restaurant La Tasca, and they also organised Flamenco workshops for students at Liverpool Community College, who were invited to join them onstage for the second Sunday.
This first Euro Fest was also an important public water-testing and information gathering exercise, explains Forde. “It’s proved a great hit,” he affirms, which has paved the way for future Euro Fest development.
There’s now talk of running multiple Euro Fests over the next three years, expanding to take advantage of more of the City’s open spaces, and ramping up to a weekly event throughout the summer months in 2008, when Liverpool takes on its European Capital of Culture status.
17th May 2005
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