AS THE SUN RISES ON COVENTRY TODAY WE START OUR YEAR IN THE SPOTLIGHT
| Published date | 15 May 2021 |
| Publication title | Coventry Telegraph |
But in a year that no-one could have predicted, the Coventry City of Culture Trust have negotiated multiple challenges during a pandemic to get the programme ready for today.
In fact, our year in the spotlight has been six years in the making, after we announced we would battle for the title of UK City of Culture in 2015.
2021 is the year that the world will be sent to Coventry, so what can we expect to see and how did we get here?
After it was announced in 2015 that we would bid for UK City of Culture, businesses and artists got involved immediately.
The Coventry Telegraph got behind the bid and it soon became apparent what winning the UK City of Culture crown would mean for Coventry.
Previous winners, Derry/ Londonderry in 2013 and Hull in 2017 experienced a major boost in tourism, as people travelled to visit the events that the teams had organised.
More businesses opened and grassroots community projects took off, as both cities worked to improve their areas and create a legacy for the future.
And this is what the Coventry City of Culture Trust has laid the groundwork to do over the past few years.
By 2017 the team was in place to ramp up the city's bid for the title, and we certainly got people talking.
A 30-page document was released which outlined why our city should be crowned the City of Culture 2021.
As well as setting out a programme of events that would take place right across the city and would include a range of communities in 2021, the document also showed how a successful bid would leave a lasting, positive impact on Coventry.
And on the evening of December 7, 2017, cheers could be heard across Coventry and from inside the Belgrade Theatre as it was announced we had won the title of UK City of Culture on the BBC's The One Show.
It was truly a great night in our city's history and here started the growth of the Trust as it worked to create the best cultural programme for Coventry.
2018 and 2019 was spent getting the team into place to roll out the programme and get communities ready.
In 2019, it was announced that Coventry was to get a multi-million pound payout towards the...
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