Stepping out of the shadows

20 November 2013 is likely to remain etched on the memories of Hull residents in the way that most people remember their mum’s birthday. After centuries as one of Britain’s most maligned cities, it was the day when Hull finally turned the tide by beating Dundee, Leicester and Swansea Bay in the UK City of Culture 2017 contest. Within days of the announcement, Hull had experienced a 29% rise in TripAdvisor visits. It was trending on Twitter, had welcomed almost a dozen BBC executives keen to get talking about the city’s plans and was enjoying the kind of media exposure which money simply can’t buy.

Hull still has mountains to climb before 2017, but it has come a long way in a very short time. As a co-writer of both the city’s 2017 and 2013 bids, the changes within Hull in just four years are hard to miss: a visibly maturing independent creative sector, new networks and collaborations across the arts and community sectors, and £190 million cultural investment plan to spearhead the renaissance of the city. Above all, there is confidence and a sense of ambition fused with realism that was not there before.

It made the point that the city has changed and has an exciting and credible cultural offer – it just had to be discovered

The narrative of Hull’s bid started with the 400-year-old phrase “From Hull, Hell and Halifax, Good Lord Deliver Us”, and made it clear that we knew where we were coming from and that our feet were firmly ‘on the ground’. The bid captured the spirit of a place with a different resonance and talked about the simple idea of Hull “coming out of the shadows”. It made the point that the city has changed and has an exciting and credible cultural offer – it just had to be discovered. The phrase clearly resonated with judges and was quoted by Phil Redmond to TV crews on the day of the announcement.

As a competition, UK City of Culture 2017 was fought with mutual respect among all four shortlisted cities. Hull kept a weather eye on what others were doing, but was determined that its story would stand out from the rest and that it would be distinctive because it was true to the city and the concept of ‘Hullness’ – a quirky way of doing things.

The international programme, which judges picked out for praise, makes the point. In exploiting the city’s natural connections with northern and eastern Europe (it sits on the Trans European highway between Limerick and St Petersburg), the bid sets out a programme of high-quality art and culture that will provide a stage for everything from the Rotterdam Symphony Orchestra and the St Petersburg Philharmonic to the Maly Theatre and Bjork, but remains rooted in Hull.

Hull’s bid, and the PR around it, shied away from celebrity. The one time it was used was in a four-minute promotional film which, while fronted by Hull-born actor Tom Courteney, ended up making such stars of the hundreds of Hull residents featured that it got a thousand YouTube hits in its first hour and has now been seen by over 100,000 people in 150 nations. The film’s upbeat celebration of ‘Hullness’ proved a turning point in transforming the hardened attitudes of a local public resigned to national criticism and proved a just reward for the 24/7 efforts of the bid team.

A survey of visitors to the largest annual festival in the Hull calendar showed judges that 95% of the city was now behind the bid and a successful pledge scheme targeted at the private sector demonstrated that more than 20 local business angels were behind Hull too (when Hull City fans start chanting "You’re only here for the culture" and the train guard says "the next stop is the UK City of Culture" you know there is local buy-in).

‘Keeping it real’ meant not pretending that we were the finished article. It showed that while Hull still only has four NPOs and lacks major local programming expertise, it can demonstrate local appetite for traditional visual arts and deliver hugely popular exhibitions (Hockney and Da Vinci at the council’s Ferens Art Gallery) and quality events such as Freedom, Humber Mouth and Hull Jazz Festival. It also meant taking care over the panel selected for the final stage of the contest: an interview with judges in Derry. As well as the council’s Jon Pywell and bid adviser and programme director Andrew Dixon, the Hull line-up included young Hull Truck producer Kate Denby, who delivered the main presentation, and community representative Karen Okra, who had turned up at an early bid workshop with a paperweight with air bubbles as a metaphor for the disconnection that still exists between sections of the community. Asked how Hull UK City of Culture 2017 would make a difference to the unemployed across the city, her passionate response was quite possibly what clinched it for Hull and heralded the start of a new era for the city.

Everyone knows about Larkin and Hull. They know about the Housemartins and Everything but the Girl and how Hockney is now producing some of his greatest work in decades after setting up home nearby. As Hull finally steps out of shadows, they will see much more. They will witness the raw energy of a unique and creative city dedicated to using the power of art and culture to transform its fortunes. And people within the city (and beyond) will have to re-think the metaphors for describing the cultural landscape of Hull.

Jon Flinn is Communications Director at DHA Communications and a co-writer of Hull’s bids for UK City of Culture 2013 and 2017.
www.hullcc.gov.uk/2017hull
www.dhacommunications.co.uk