It is a universal truth that the things that go wrong are often etched most deeply on the collective memory: we remember the tragedies and somehow the triumphs slip our minds. This inclination is often fuelled by the media.
A decade after many of the millennium schemes opened, a spate of articles have questioned the “costly arts projects” that have “flopped”. But soundbites and column inches are one thing cold hard facts another. Ten years on, are millennium projects proving sustainable?
On the whole, it’s a pretty positive picture. If you look at the loose grouping of cultural projects that opened at the millennium or just after, the successes far outnumber the failures.
Nick Winterbotham, the chief executive of Thinktank in Birmingham, says that the Millennium Dome, the ultimate millennium scheme, coloured the public’s view of all the other projects.
“Only three big lottery projects failed [the National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield, and the Cardiff Centre for Visual Art both closed in 2000, while the Earth Centre in Doncaster was shut in 2004]. The problem was the Dome: it was the project that everybody loved to hate.”
One of the reasons it was seen as a failure was vastly inflated projections for visitor numbers that failed to materialise. “The predicted visitor figures were 12 million and it didn’t get anywhere near that [6.5 million]. It was a huge ask and a mistake,” says Winterbotham.
On top of disappointing visitor figures, poor reviews and seemingly constant changes of personnel, it proved difficult to find a use for the venue after the millennium year, which further distorted the public’s perception.
But putting aside the impact of the Dome, some of the cultural projects that opened around the millennium had a shaky start and didn’t immediately deliver all the benefits that had been promised of them.
When the dockyards on the Manchester Ship canal closed in 1982 it brought to an end nearly 100 years of industry in the area. Within a couple of years Salford council had bought the derelict land and announced an ambitious regeneration scheme, renaming the area Salford Quays.
Two cultural venues, the Lowry and the Imperial War Museum (IWM) North, were integral to the council’s plans. According to Jim Forrester, the director of IWM North, the regeneration of the area has happened, but not as quickly as some hoped.
“Regeneration is often pursued at a pace that can’t possibly happen,” he says. “The Quays development has been slower than promised.”
His advice is that you have to hold on to a long-term vision and be prepared to sit out the tough times in order to survive. “You have to ride the wave. It’s unpredictable, especially in terms of timing. We’re three miles out of the middle of Manchester in a tough location, without good public transport links.”
But it looks like Forrester’s patience is about to pay off. This year sees the completion of MediaCityUK, a scheme by property firm the Peel Group that will house five BBC departments and is predicted to create up to 10,000 jobs in the area.
Forrester says new public transport links, another bridge over the quays and landscaping around the IWM site will further enhance his museum’s pull. “I think we are now established as one of the big players in the region. With us and the Lowry, MediaCity completes the triangle of cultural venues in this area.”
Linda Conlon, chief executive of the Centre for Life in Newcastle, agrees that patience is a virtue when it comes to Millennium projects.
“All the millennium projects were born under a spotlight and there were many detractors rubbing their hands with glee at some of the early mistakes. It takes about 10 years to get bedded in.”
The Centre for Life is one of the science centres that were created all over the UK at the turn of the millennium. Conlon says that part of the reason for its success is that it’s not just a science centre but a “science village”, with everything from a hospital to a university and even a nightclub onsite.
The diversity of the site underpins the business model. “The trust owns the site and buildings and is therefore in a healthier state than many other science centres. It made business sense to build in complementary income generators.”
According to Conlon, the test has been getting people to come back. “The ongoing challenge is repeat visitors. We have to offer new things all the time.”
“Upping the offer” is even more necessary when the subject is science and technology, where there are new developments on a daily basis. She says a lot of the “glitzy” exhibits from the opening displays didn’t stand the test of time. “It would have been useful to consider how to build in some flexibility from the outset.”
The lack of ongoing revenue funding has been a challenge for science centres. The Millennium Commission funded a number of centres, from Magna in Rotherham to the National Space Centre in Leicester, but in all of these cases, once the initial capital development was complete, they were expected to raise their own running costs.
Winterbotham at Thinktank says there wasn’t enough thought put into what happened after the centres opened. “There’s been no fund for renewing and refreshing displays, therefore they have struggled to revitalise and refresh their offer.”
Thinktank is part of the £113m Millennium Point development in Birmingham. It was meant to have housed a wide range of leisure and educational facilities, as well as the city council’s collections from the old science museum. But when it first opened it struggled to fill all of its spaces and was quick to earn the “white elephant” tag from local pundits.
Winterbotham says it has now turned itself around, although the first few years were difficult. “It took longer to get established than people expected. Also, regeneration has taken time, but the surrounding land has been bought by developers who are now waiting for the best moment to build.”
He says the trick with projects such as Thinktank is keeping your nerve. “The second and third year were tricky and anxiety crept in. We had to stick to local and regional issues and put education at the core.”
One of the reasons for Thinktank’s shaky start was a dip in visitor figures after the first year. It was not alone in this; most millennium projects chalked up good figures in the first year that were then difficult to repeat.
At IWM North, first-year visitor figures were more than 384,000 – well over the 300,000 prediction. But by 2004-05, they had dropped to 247,000. Forrester says that visitors are often wowed by the new building, but you then have to persuade them to come back.
“When you put a large shiny building on the ground it will be much talked about and visited – in the first year there was a lot of interest,” he says.
“Then we had a period where our more traditional visitors had to be accommodated – we had to persuade them that we were the Imperial War Museum with the same standards of research and collections care but we also had to position ourselves as being for and about people, not just a museum of military hardware.”
He says developing a strong temporary exhibition programme, a good marketing campaign and a clear brand were the key to attracting nearly 250,000 visitors.
The New Art Gallery Walsall had 202,000 visitors last year, the same as when it opened 10 years ago. The intervening period did see a substantial dip though, with a low of just over 100,000 in 2006.
The gallery’s director, Stephen Snoddy, says that like a lot of similar projects the attendance figures dropped after first 18 months and then levelled out.
He argues that the biggest challenge has been securing enough revenue funding. “When the New Art Gallery opened, the costs of running a new building had been underestimated. It was the same in other projects – a lot had to have substantial increases in revenue funding from Arts Council England.”
But he admits it’s very difficult to estimate running costs in advance. “The director is caught up in the capital programme and they don’t get the chance to figure out revenue costs. It’s only in the first 18 months that you can work out true costs.”
Snoddy says projects need to make more realistic estimations of running costs and to find funders who are willing to err on the side of generosity.
Although the pace of capital developments has slowed down recently, there are still a number of big cultural projects that will open over the next few years, such as the £46m Cutty Sark scheme in London and the £35m Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. It will be interesting to see if any of the millennium lessons have been learned.
Recent history points to the fact that not all the pertinent messages have been heard. One of the reasons that Millennium Point in Birmingham no longer gets described as a white elephant is that the moniker is now applied to a venue just a few miles down the road in West Bromwich: the Public.
As for those projects celebrating their 10th anniversaries this year there is no question of low-key birthday parties or a modest bash. The New Art Gallery Walsall marked its birthday with a 2,000-strong shindig in February; and this month Tate Modern will stage a free, three-day arts festival, No Soul for Sale, in honour of the 45 million people that have passed through its doors.
But the prize for the biggest show-off has to go to the Lowry in Salford. It has commissioned Spencer Tunick to create a work to celebrate its first decade. All he has to do is find 1,000 volunteers to take part in his Everyday People project – and then persuade them to take their kit off.
No Soul for Sale at Tate Modern, 14-16 May, www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nosoulforsale
Spencer Tunick at the Lowry: 1-2 May, 12 June-26 September, www.thelowry.com/events/every-day people/home
Baltic, Gateshead
Opened July 2002
Cost £46m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 628,568 (July-March)
2008-09 visitor figures 344,500
Annual running cost when opened £3.5m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £5.1m
Centre for Life, Newcastle
Opened May 2000
Cost £60m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 150,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 200,564
2008-09 visitor figures 200,056
Annual running cost when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-09 £7.7m
Imperial War Museum North, Salford
Opened July 2002
Cost £28.5m
Main funder Peel Holdings
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000-300,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 384,366
2008-09 visitor figures 244,788
Annual running cost when opened £2.7m approx
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.9m
Lowry, Salford
Opened April 2000
Cost £70m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 650,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 942,461
2008-09 visitor figures 821,000
Annual running cost when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-09 not available
National Space Centre, Leicester
Opened June 2001
Cost £60m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 275,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 276,000
2008-09 visitor figures 216,000
Annual running cost when opened (2002) £2.4m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.5m
New Art Gallery Walsall
Opened September 1999
Cost £21m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 100,0000
Actual first-year visitor figures 202,776
2008-09 visitor figures 197,297
Annual running cost when opened £1.7m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.4m
Tate Modern, London
Opened May 2000
Cost £137m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 1,800,000
Actual first-year figures 4,771,000
2008-09 visitor figures 4,647,881
Running costs when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-2009 not available
Thinktank, Birmingham
Opened September 2001
Cost £113m (for whole)
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 200,000-300,000
Actual first-year figures 220,000
2008-09 visitor figures 250,000
Annual running cost when opened £4.8m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £4.2m
Dome, London
Opened January 2000
Cost £789m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 12,000,000
Actual first-year figures 6,500,000
Cardiff Centre for Visual Art
Opened September 1999.
Closed November 2000
Cost £8.8m
Main funder Arts Council of Wales
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000
Actual first-year figures 47,000
National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield
Opened March 1999
Closed June 2000
Cost £15m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 400,000
Actual first-year figures 104,000 (seven months)
A decade after many of the millennium schemes opened, a spate of articles have questioned the “costly arts projects” that have “flopped”. But soundbites and column inches are one thing cold hard facts another. Ten years on, are millennium projects proving sustainable?
On the whole, it’s a pretty positive picture. If you look at the loose grouping of cultural projects that opened at the millennium or just after, the successes far outnumber the failures.
Nick Winterbotham, the chief executive of Thinktank in Birmingham, says that the Millennium Dome, the ultimate millennium scheme, coloured the public’s view of all the other projects.
“Only three big lottery projects failed [the National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield, and the Cardiff Centre for Visual Art both closed in 2000, while the Earth Centre in Doncaster was shut in 2004]. The problem was the Dome: it was the project that everybody loved to hate.”
One of the reasons it was seen as a failure was vastly inflated projections for visitor numbers that failed to materialise. “The predicted visitor figures were 12 million and it didn’t get anywhere near that [6.5 million]. It was a huge ask and a mistake,” says Winterbotham.
On top of disappointing visitor figures, poor reviews and seemingly constant changes of personnel, it proved difficult to find a use for the venue after the millennium year, which further distorted the public’s perception.
But putting aside the impact of the Dome, some of the cultural projects that opened around the millennium had a shaky start and didn’t immediately deliver all the benefits that had been promised of them.
When the dockyards on the Manchester Ship canal closed in 1982 it brought to an end nearly 100 years of industry in the area. Within a couple of years Salford council had bought the derelict land and announced an ambitious regeneration scheme, renaming the area Salford Quays.
Two cultural venues, the Lowry and the Imperial War Museum (IWM) North, were integral to the council’s plans. According to Jim Forrester, the director of IWM North, the regeneration of the area has happened, but not as quickly as some hoped.
“Regeneration is often pursued at a pace that can’t possibly happen,” he says. “The Quays development has been slower than promised.”
His advice is that you have to hold on to a long-term vision and be prepared to sit out the tough times in order to survive. “You have to ride the wave. It’s unpredictable, especially in terms of timing. We’re three miles out of the middle of Manchester in a tough location, without good public transport links.”
But it looks like Forrester’s patience is about to pay off. This year sees the completion of MediaCityUK, a scheme by property firm the Peel Group that will house five BBC departments and is predicted to create up to 10,000 jobs in the area.
Forrester says new public transport links, another bridge over the quays and landscaping around the IWM site will further enhance his museum’s pull. “I think we are now established as one of the big players in the region. With us and the Lowry, MediaCity completes the triangle of cultural venues in this area.”
Linda Conlon, chief executive of the Centre for Life in Newcastle, agrees that patience is a virtue when it comes to Millennium projects.
“All the millennium projects were born under a spotlight and there were many detractors rubbing their hands with glee at some of the early mistakes. It takes about 10 years to get bedded in.”
The Centre for Life is one of the science centres that were created all over the UK at the turn of the millennium. Conlon says that part of the reason for its success is that it’s not just a science centre but a “science village”, with everything from a hospital to a university and even a nightclub onsite.
The diversity of the site underpins the business model. “The trust owns the site and buildings and is therefore in a healthier state than many other science centres. It made business sense to build in complementary income generators.”
According to Conlon, the test has been getting people to come back. “The ongoing challenge is repeat visitors. We have to offer new things all the time.”
“Upping the offer” is even more necessary when the subject is science and technology, where there are new developments on a daily basis. She says a lot of the “glitzy” exhibits from the opening displays didn’t stand the test of time. “It would have been useful to consider how to build in some flexibility from the outset.”
The lack of ongoing revenue funding has been a challenge for science centres. The Millennium Commission funded a number of centres, from Magna in Rotherham to the National Space Centre in Leicester, but in all of these cases, once the initial capital development was complete, they were expected to raise their own running costs.
Winterbotham at Thinktank says there wasn’t enough thought put into what happened after the centres opened. “There’s been no fund for renewing and refreshing displays, therefore they have struggled to revitalise and refresh their offer.”
Thinktank is part of the £113m Millennium Point development in Birmingham. It was meant to have housed a wide range of leisure and educational facilities, as well as the city council’s collections from the old science museum. But when it first opened it struggled to fill all of its spaces and was quick to earn the “white elephant” tag from local pundits.
Winterbotham says it has now turned itself around, although the first few years were difficult. “It took longer to get established than people expected. Also, regeneration has taken time, but the surrounding land has been bought by developers who are now waiting for the best moment to build.”
He says the trick with projects such as Thinktank is keeping your nerve. “The second and third year were tricky and anxiety crept in. We had to stick to local and regional issues and put education at the core.”
One of the reasons for Thinktank’s shaky start was a dip in visitor figures after the first year. It was not alone in this; most millennium projects chalked up good figures in the first year that were then difficult to repeat.
At IWM North, first-year visitor figures were more than 384,000 – well over the 300,000 prediction. But by 2004-05, they had dropped to 247,000. Forrester says that visitors are often wowed by the new building, but you then have to persuade them to come back.
“When you put a large shiny building on the ground it will be much talked about and visited – in the first year there was a lot of interest,” he says.
“Then we had a period where our more traditional visitors had to be accommodated – we had to persuade them that we were the Imperial War Museum with the same standards of research and collections care but we also had to position ourselves as being for and about people, not just a museum of military hardware.”
He says developing a strong temporary exhibition programme, a good marketing campaign and a clear brand were the key to attracting nearly 250,000 visitors.
The New Art Gallery Walsall had 202,000 visitors last year, the same as when it opened 10 years ago. The intervening period did see a substantial dip though, with a low of just over 100,000 in 2006.
The gallery’s director, Stephen Snoddy, says that like a lot of similar projects the attendance figures dropped after first 18 months and then levelled out.
He argues that the biggest challenge has been securing enough revenue funding. “When the New Art Gallery opened, the costs of running a new building had been underestimated. It was the same in other projects – a lot had to have substantial increases in revenue funding from Arts Council England.”
But he admits it’s very difficult to estimate running costs in advance. “The director is caught up in the capital programme and they don’t get the chance to figure out revenue costs. It’s only in the first 18 months that you can work out true costs.”
Snoddy says projects need to make more realistic estimations of running costs and to find funders who are willing to err on the side of generosity.
Although the pace of capital developments has slowed down recently, there are still a number of big cultural projects that will open over the next few years, such as the £46m Cutty Sark scheme in London and the £35m Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. It will be interesting to see if any of the millennium lessons have been learned.
Recent history points to the fact that not all the pertinent messages have been heard. One of the reasons that Millennium Point in Birmingham no longer gets described as a white elephant is that the moniker is now applied to a venue just a few miles down the road in West Bromwich: the Public.
As for those projects celebrating their 10th anniversaries this year there is no question of low-key birthday parties or a modest bash. The New Art Gallery Walsall marked its birthday with a 2,000-strong shindig in February; and this month Tate Modern will stage a free, three-day arts festival, No Soul for Sale, in honour of the 45 million people that have passed through its doors.
But the prize for the biggest show-off has to go to the Lowry in Salford. It has commissioned Spencer Tunick to create a work to celebrate its first decade. All he has to do is find 1,000 volunteers to take part in his Everyday People project – and then persuade them to take their kit off.
Links
No Soul for Sale at Tate Modern, 14-16 May, www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nosoulforsale
Spencer Tunick at the Lowry: 1-2 May, 12 June-26 September, www.thelowry.com/events/every-day people/home
Marking the millennium
Baltic, Gateshead
Opened July 2002
Cost £46m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 628,568 (July-March)
2008-09 visitor figures 344,500
Annual running cost when opened £3.5m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £5.1m
Centre for Life, Newcastle
Opened May 2000
Cost £60m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 150,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 200,564
2008-09 visitor figures 200,056
Annual running cost when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-09 £7.7m
Imperial War Museum North, Salford
Opened July 2002
Cost £28.5m
Main funder Peel Holdings
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000-300,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 384,366
2008-09 visitor figures 244,788
Annual running cost when opened £2.7m approx
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.9m
Lowry, Salford
Opened April 2000
Cost £70m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 650,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 942,461
2008-09 visitor figures 821,000
Annual running cost when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-09 not available
National Space Centre, Leicester
Opened June 2001
Cost £60m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 275,000
Actual first-year visitor figures 276,000
2008-09 visitor figures 216,000
Annual running cost when opened (2002) £2.4m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.5m
New Art Gallery Walsall
Opened September 1999
Cost £21m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 100,0000
Actual first-year visitor figures 202,776
2008-09 visitor figures 197,297
Annual running cost when opened £1.7m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £2.4m
Tate Modern, London
Opened May 2000
Cost £137m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 1,800,000
Actual first-year figures 4,771,000
2008-09 visitor figures 4,647,881
Running costs when opened not available
Annual running costs 2008-2009 not available
Thinktank, Birmingham
Opened September 2001
Cost £113m (for whole)
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 200,000-300,000
Actual first-year figures 220,000
2008-09 visitor figures 250,000
Annual running cost when opened £4.8m
Annual running costs 2008-09 £4.2m
Dome, London
Opened January 2000
Cost £789m
Main funder Millennium Commission
Predicted annual visitor figures 12,000,000
Actual first-year figures 6,500,000
Cardiff Centre for Visual Art
Opened September 1999.
Closed November 2000
Cost £8.8m
Main funder Arts Council of Wales
Predicted annual visitor figures 250,000
Actual first-year figures 47,000
National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield
Opened March 1999
Closed June 2000
Cost £15m
Main funder Arts Council England
Predicted annual visitor figures 400,000
Actual first-year figures 104,000 (seven months)