- Funding will help the city deliver celebrations this summer
in line with Covid-19 restrictions
- Culture Secretary said: “Coventry has demonstrated a remarkable
resilience and ability to adapt during these challenging and
unprecedented times”
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has awarded
£3.5 million to Coventry City of Culture to help the city deliver
its celebrations this summer in line with Covid-19 restrictions.
The funding will help Coventry City of Culture host events with
enhanced Covid-19 safety and hygiene methods, providing
reassurance to audiences and ensuring the celebrations can go
ahead as restrictions ease over the summer. It will allow the
live streaming of events so that people from all over the West
Midlands and the UK can join in with the launch of UK City of
Culture 2021 from the safety of their own homes.
Culture Secretary said:
Coventry has demonstrated a remarkable resilience and ability
to adapt during these challenging and unprecedented times. Now
more than ever, it is vitally important that we bring our
communities together through culture, arts and heritage.
This additional funding will help the city as it begins its
exciting year of celebrations for UK City of Culture and I look
forward to seeing how the next 12 months will benefit the local
area as we build back better from the impact of Covid.
Martin Sutherland, Chief Executive of Coventry City of Culture
Trust, said:
This funding will help us to deliver our promises to Coventry
and to the visitors we hope to welcome soon, starting with a
Summer of Surprises. We are excited to share the extraordinary
creativity from Coventry and explore new ways to use digital
platforms and broadcast channels to reach new audiences both in
person and at home.
It’s been an incredibly challenging 12 months for the sector;
this new funding enables us to support the organisations,
artists, freelancers and communities who are so key to
delivering a safe, secure and exciting year for the city”.
The funding will address the specific financial challenges the
pandemic has brought about and will help Coventry unlock
additional support to allow the 2021 programme to maximise its
impact and reach.
The additional £3.5 million announced today brings the total
government support for Coventry’s tenure as UK City of Culture to
over £18.5 million. This includes £8.5 million of capital funding
for key heritage and cultural organisations including the Daimler
Powerhouse, FarGo Box, Belgrade Theatre, Drapers Hall, Herbert
Art Gallery and Museum and Coventry Cathedral. The Cultural
Investment Fund provided £6.58 million to the Coventry City of
Culture Trust for resource and legacy projects including a new
digital art gallery.
In addition, Arts Council England has allocated £4.9 million to
support Coventry’s success as City of Culture and over £8.8
million of the government’s unprecedented £1.57 billion Culture
Recovery Fund has been awarded to 28 organisations in Coventry to
help them through the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than £170 million has been awarded to over 1,000
organisations in the Midlands from the government’s unprecedented
Culture Recovery Fund.
UK City of Culture is a competition run by the Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport every four years. The
competition celebrates culture in all its forms across the UK and
helps to stimulate economic growth, create jobs in the community
and attract inward investment, leading to a lasting legacy of
social, cultural and economic change.
Coventry is planning a spectacular year of events and activities,
from the opening city-wide “Coventry Moves”, through established
events such as the Booker Prize and Turner Prize announcements
both being held in the city this year, to productions created
especially for City of Culture.
It is expected that Coventry’s year as City of Culture will see
an economic boost of £211 million with an additional 2.5 million
visitors. It is hoped that 80% of the city’s residents will
engage with the programme three or more times across the year,
and it will attract around 10,000 volunteers and create more than
900 jobs.
Coventry is the third UK City of Culture with Derry-Londonderry
the first city to take up the mantle in 2013, followed by Hull in
2017.Partner is the British Council.
