He says , “ It didn ’ t happen by accident , you can trace it back to one man in particular , Tony Wilson , he really put Manchester on the map . It has always been a creative city , a city with a buzz , but throughout the 1980s there was a deliberate attempt to make Manchester a rival cultural centre to London .
“ Tony was really clear about not having people go cap in hand to London , he wanted to build a power base , an infrastructure here to compete . By the time the late 1980s came and the whole Madchester thing happened , the infrastructure had been built and local talent had been nurtured . We have since reaped the benefits of that .”
Lord , who is also the co-founder of the 80,000-capacity Parklife festival
Bjork performs at the Manchester
International Festival
and The Warehouse Project club night series , is an outspoken advocate of Manchester ’ s hospitality and events sector and is passionate about channelling funds , created by his events , back into local businesses .
Parklife contributed £ 15m of economic benefit to the Greater Manchester economy in 2019 . The LN-Gaiety-owned festival has been rescheduled from June to September this year , and should it go ahead as planned it will not only benefit the local economy and the event ’ s many staff and suppliers , but numerous small neighbourhood projects .
A collaboration between Parklife and Manchester , Bury and Rochdale councils , Parklife Community Fund provides local organisations with grants . Priority is given to projects that make use of parks and open spaces .
“ In 2019 , we raised £ 120,000 ,” says Lord . “ The festival site , Heaton Park , sits on the border of Manchester and Bury so we split the money between the two councils , and they distribute the grants . It ’ s great to put something back into the community .”
Lord has lobbied the Government continuously and supported successful legal action against some of its policies throughout the pandemic . His continual calls for increased support for freelancers , venues and nightclub businesses have been heard and action such as the extension to furlough and VAT relief are welcome , but he is in no doubt there will be lasting damage to the city ’ s economy .
“ I think it will probably take three years for businesses to get back to pre-Covid levels because of them having taken on so much debt with bounce-back loans and rent arrears – it ’ s going to take a while to recover but I am absolutely confident , if there ’ s any city in the UK that will bounce back it is going to be Greater Manchester ,” says Lord .
Another hugely important event for the Manchester economy is the Manchester International Festival ( MIF ), which takes place every two years and focuses on newly commissioned work that is presented at the festival and then tours internationally . Since the multi-artform festival was launched in 2007 , it has grown to become a landmark event that regularly attracts a worldwide audience of ticket buyers from up to 40 countries .
In 2019 , MIF consisted of more than 1,000 ticketed events over 18 days . It drew a record audience of more than 300,000 and delivered an economic contribution of around £ 50m to Manchester . Acts to perform at the
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