Leeds 2023: Headingley Stadium live show announced as 100 day countdown begins

When growing up in the West Midlands town of Smethwick, young people were “factory fodder” and it wasn’t until she was training to become a social worker at university in Yorkshire that she understood the life-changing force of culture.

“The arts wasn't something I thought was going to be for me,” she says, now three decades into a successful career leading cultural institutions.

“I was at university in Bradford and I initially got involved in the Theatre In The Mill there. That gave me an opportunity to see work I'd never seen before. I remember seeing a very recently-formed Phoenix Dance Theatre there. I'd had little or no access to the arts, so it played a real important role in just opening the world up to me.”

This is just the sort of enlightening that she hopes to offer countless others when Leeds 2023 - a year of cultural events in the city - begins in 100 days.

It will start with a special opening ceremony at Headingley Stadium on January 7, it has been announced today. Titled The Awakening, it will celebrate Leeds’s past, present and future with a live show, directed by Kully and Alan Lane, artistic director of Slung Low - each known for creating large, political, inclusive work.

There are 15,000 tickets available and a ballot is now open. However, unlike ordinary ballots, Leeds 2023 is asking people from the city’s 33 wards to get creative and submit a piece of art to be in with a chance of gaining a pair of free tickets.

Punctuated by 12 major signature projects throughout next year, the Leeds 2023 programme will include hundreds of events and activities, many of them developed in partnership with local, national and international partners.

A flavour of what is to come will be revealed today at an event hosted by broadcaster and chair of Leeds 2023, Gabby Logan MBE, a Yorkshire native. Hundreds of people from the city’s communities, cultural organisations, businesses, educational and public sector organisations will gather at the organisation’s new Brewery Wharf headquarters to hear announcements made.

Leeds 2023 was organised after civic leaders found out in 2017 that, because of Brexit, UK cities would not get the opportunity to bid for the European Capital of Culture title as the West Yorkshire city has planned and worked towards.

Kully, who was previously artistic director of Leeds’s Red Ladder Theatre Company and founding director of the Cast performance venue in Doncaster, in addition to holding other top positions, says: “I'm thrilled to have got here. It's been such an extraordinary journey from getting that sense that we were no longer eligible to be European Capital of Culture to suddenly the city deciding to do it anyway and then of course, me joining at the beginning of 2020 - 10 weeks before lockdown - and all of the kind of uncertainty and chaos of those last few years. So it feels like it's quite a momentous moment, really, coming to 100 days to go, because so many people have worked so hard and helped us along the way to get us here that it's both nervous-making and exciting and thrilling.”

Councillor Jonathan Pryor is Deputy Leader of Leeds City Council as well as its Executive Member for Economy, Culture and Education, and is also a board member of the Leeds Culture Trust, the charity running Leeds 2023.

He grew up being involved in musical theatre and amateur dramatics, performing in the shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar and Les Misérables.

“I think with Leeds, we do so much, so well, but we don't always shout about it,” he says.

“And sometimes the rest of the country doesn't get to hear about it. So actually, even though we've got these incredibly well-established cultural institutions, going from the behemoths of Opera North and Northern Ballet, down through to Kirkgate Market and the Brudenell, to South Asian Arts, and everything in between, I think 2023 gives us a chance to basically put a megaphone to everything we do and show the country, show the world, what we're about and just how incredible the city is because I think too often Leeds gets overlooked for things.”

While artistic involvement is expected to benefit the mental health and wellbeing of people in the city, both Coun Pryor and Kully also speak of culture’s role in aiding the economy too.

Coun Pryor says: “The economic impact of a city and a region pushing culture can't be underestimated at all. We're in some really difficult economic times at the moment. But we know that for every pound we spend on this, six pounds gets put back into the economy.

"Culture is something which grows an economy. It will produce jobs, it will produce employment. We really want to just create that atmosphere - and we are creating that atmosphere - of, if you want a job in the cultural sector, if you want a job in any of the arts, you don't have to go to London. There are jobs in Leeds. There are jobs in Bradford. There are jobs in Huddersfield and Halifax and Wakefield.”

One of the aims has been to offer something to people from every part of Leeds. A benefit of working outside the European Capital of Culture framework, suggests Coun Pryor, is that Leeds 2023 organisers got to define what culture is and cater for all kinds of tastes. “There really is going to be something for everyone,” he says. “I know that the team is just making sure that it does appeal to everyone. You can go to something you love; you can try something new. I think people are going to absolutely love what's in store.”