Paul Billington: Call to action for city's people to get involved in arts and culture

People who live in Sheffield, or indeed visit us, will know that the city already has a great cultural scene – music, museums, festivals, theatre, art, film, dance and more. So why bid to become the UK's first City of Culture?

It is true, there is much good work going on, but we recognise there is room to get even better. Our public participation rate in the arts is below the national average; we're looking to further improve our tourism figures and we need a further boost to our digital and creative businesses in order to achieve our target to become the most creative city in the UK by 2020.

We also want to step up our work on sending a new message about Sheffield to the outside world. The message isn't one that debunks our proud industrial heritage – we're very happy to remind people that Sheffield is still a city that makes things, including record sales of steel. However, nowadays the city has many other things to shout about like its two great universities, a national park within the city boundary, unrivalled high speed broadband, superb and ever-improving transport links, a green city, a safe city and, of course, it is probably the friendliest city in the UK. So, a city of culture – yes. But winning UK City of Culture will fast track us to become a truly national centre of culture.

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The results will be unprecedented – two million extra visitors; 300m extra spend and 5,500 jobs. What better way for the city to beat off the recession.

So what's the focus of our bid? To reflect the city's character but also the contemporary YouTube age of people generating their own content, our bid has focused on everyone, including residents and visitors, taking part in the arts and culture.

It's a call to action to the city and our visitors to get involved in arts and culture and not just watch; to create and not just consume; to perform and not just spectate; to upload and not just download.

The bid sits at the heart of a wider international programme which will include a Warhol and Koons exhibition; the Turner Prize and Electric Proms; two major music concerts as the highlight of our 2013 Music City festival; an unrivalled season at the Crucible and joint work with the V&A and Tate Britain.

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So it will be big – both for the city, but also for the UK. Liverpool proved the power of culture in 2008. Sheffield has understood the power of sporting and cultural events for the last 20 years. UK City of Culture would take us to a new level – but we have the venues and capacity to handle it, the track record to deliver it, a programme worthy of it and the absolute determination to make a huge success of it.

All we need now is the Government to back us and make a decision in our favour on July 15.

If not, then the momentum, energy, goodwill and direction gained over the past six months will drive this great city of culture forward anyway.

Paul Billington is director of culture, Sheffield City Council.

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To hear interviews with the likes of Barry Cryer, Paul Merton and Alan Ayckbourn, and for an in-depth look at what's happening across the county, listen to or download the Yorkshire Post's arts podcast at www.yorkshirepost/podcasts