Member Article

Draw for naming rights for Mersey River Festival

One of Liverpool’s most popular public events is to have new corporate branding – announced at a lottery-style draw.

The International Mersey River Festival runs from 5 – 7 June this year.

Dozens of local businesses that have supported the Mayoral 100 Club – set up to help fund the River Festival - are in the running to win the title sponsorship of the event.

The Mayoral 100 Club is a business-to-business networking scheme, with firms paying £3,000 to become a member. The money raised is invested into developing the event.

Liverpool’s Mayor Joe Anderson will preside over the draw at a special evening event at the Town Hall, picking out three winners at random.

The first prize will award the overall naming rights for the International Mersey River Festival, so it will be called “International Mersey River Festival in partnership with …”

The next firm drawn will win sponsorship of the Music on the Waterfront stage, which will see a whole host of top-name acts take part in a free concert on the Pier Head throughout the River Festival.

Finally, the third drawn firm will become the official partner of the education and community engagement programme, which aims to involve as many Liverpool residents as possible, young and old, before, during and after the event

Mayor Anderson said: “Culture and free cultural activities are hugely important to this city, and the International Mersey River Festival is certainly one of the most popular in our events calendar.

“Many of our events now have a major sponsor which is just fantastic but I wanted to devise something where smaller companies also had the chance to get involved and contribute to the growth and the life of the city

“Staging events is like rocket fuel to the city’s economy, because they support business and employment. We have a wonderful city and I want people to visit because it is a fact that they will come back again.

“In the current financial climate, we have to think differently about how we stage these events, as we can’t be solely responsible for funding everything”.

Some of the organisations in line to win the naming rights are Albert Dock Company, the Hilton, Merseyrail, TJ Morris Ltd, Stena Freight and Peel Ports.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .