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CREWE TOWN COUNCIL 1 Chantry Court Forge Street Crewe Cheshire CW1 2DL Tel: 01270 756975 www.crewetowncouncil.gov.uk Please ask for: Edwina Rigby Tel. Direct: 07494 499791 Our Ref: TENDER/ LUMEN2020 Email: events@crewetowncouncil.gov.uk N.B. email is for questions only, tenders only accepted by post.

Mon 6th April 2020

Invitation to Tender for the management and organisation of Lumen – Crewe’s Night of Lights on Fri 27th Nov 2020 and associated activity in Crewe Town Centre.

STRICT DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Sun 3rd May 5pm If you are intending to submit a tender please let us know in advance on events@crewetowncouncil.gov.uk

so that we can advise you of any extra information provided to other tenderers. Final tenders must be submitted by post.

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT After two successful years of Lumen – Crewe’s Night of Lights, Crewe Town Council is seeking a reliable and innovative production company to plan, organise and deliver the event in its third year as well as activities around it.

About Lumen See the Lumen 2019 film here: https://youtu.be/V1FYMFOi2E4

LUMEN is an outdoor light event in Crewe Town Centre, started in 2018. The event works within the context of Cheshire East’s Cultural Framework, Crewe’s Audience Development Strategy and Crewe’s Cultural Strategy, supporting town regeneration, economic development and community objectives. Lumen is well attended by local people who come to see the Christmas lights being turned on and feedback to the new format these last two years has been overwhelmingly positive. Summary evaluation information from 2019 is included in Appendix i. The event welcomes in excess of 15k visitors over approx. 3 hours and takes place across the town centre in Memorial Square, Market Square (Crewe Square) and Lyceum Square, with a temporary road closure in place to ensure safety. In 2018 the event also used Christ Church, near the Lifestyle Centre, and this could be considered as another location for 2020 with enough notice. Highlights of previous years were performances by the Heliosphere (Dream Engine), Spark Drummers, beautiful lanterns, quality digital art installations such as Wave-Field and installations by Impossible as well

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as large projection mapping shows on the Municipal Building. The event has also successfully included a community lantern parade, a small funfair, live music stage by Cat Radio, a fireworks display and a Christmas Market which we’d like to be repeated in the 2020 event.

Aims The aims of Lumen, Crewe’s Night of Lights are to:

• Contribute towards the economic development of the town centre by creating experiences and developing an evening economy

• Attract visitors to the town

• Involve local residents in participation

• Raise local pride of Crewe

• Change the perception of Crewe, develop its reputation as a vibrant place

• Reinforce the emerging brand identity of the town.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY The appointed production company will be expected to undertake the following responsibilities:

Programming Work with us to shape the creative programming, using your ideas and connections. You should bring a strong understanding of quality, imagination and ambition, and be open to working with some of our contacts if required as well. The night of Lumen itself should be visually stunning, high quality and offer the opportunity for surprise, as well as offer opportunity to showcase local talent. There should be interesting things to see across all three squares, including live performances. Programming suggestions should take account of the fact that most of the site is outdoors. Main locations and previous uses (See Appendices for map/images): Memorial Square is the focus for the switch-on moment and presents opportunities for projecting onto the Municipal Building, and installations on the square itself. No commercial activity can happen on this square. There is a raised mezzanine area at the back of the square which can be used for the ‘button press switch-on moment’, a VIP area, disabled viewing area or similar. (The mezzanine area has a 1 tonne weight limit.) Market Square has contained a successful funfair for the past two years as well as some food/drink stalls and a few other market traders in Market Street. This could easily continue in 2020. The lantern parade lines up along Queensway (on one side of the square) and walks around the outside of this square on the road, before heading up Market Street and into Memorial Square. Lyceum Square and the Market Shed/ car park usually contain food, drink and craft stalls as well as Santa’s grotto. There is plenty of space for installations here, for example Wave-Field was here in 2019 (large light-up see-saws) and it’s right next to the beautiful Lyceum Theatre. The local community radio station Cat Radio will attend and provide background music and a small stage for local performances on at least one of the squares. In 2019 they were on both Market Square and Lyceum Square and helped inform the public what was happening when. Christ Church was used as an event location for an installation in 2018. This site is a disused old church, with a beautiful open air-court yard, although access can be less straight forward. We didn’t use it as a location in 2019.

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New for 2020 – large white hoardings along Queensway – sections will be left blank and could be used for projection. We are also looking for imaginative programming ideas that could animate the town centre beyond the one night of Lumen itself, ideally up to Christmas. In previous years the projection mapping show has continued to run every night until Christmas, but the Council would like to consider other ideas, ideally things that wouldn’t need constant security. Perhaps imaginative light installations installed above head height or an interactive projection. Ideas should be designed to bring footfall into the town centre. For your reference, in previous years key event timings were:

07:30 Rig begins and continues all day. 17:00 Event begins (some things could start at 16:00 if safe to do so) 18:00 Lantern Parade begins in Market Sq 18:25 Lantern Parade ends in Memorial Sq followed by brief speech by local VIP 18:30 Official light switch-on moment including turning the projection mapping show on (Memorial Sq)

18:45 Fireworks 20:00 Event ends, derig begins once safe to do so 23:00 Get out complete, site checked.

Event Management Create, share and run the project plan and write the Event Management Plan. Actively participate and contribute to the event Steering Committee/ Working Group as necessary. Identify, manage and coordinate adequate staff to run the event. Crewe Town Council may be able to provide some staff to assist on the night, but the responsibility for on-site management will be with the Production Company. Be the point of contact and liaison for all artists and content providers both before and during the event. Where necessary, liaise with property owners such as Cheshire East Council to arrange any required permissions for the use of locations. The use of Market Square, Memorial Square and Lyceum Square do require some communications, but are relatively straight forward. Locations such as Christ Church, the Victoria Centre or inside/ the roofs of any retail units, for example, would require a more concentrated and focused approach. Supervise the load in/ rig and derig/ load out phases of the event as well as the event itself. Manage the lantern parade, including assembly point, giving out and collecting of lanterns, as well as stewarding and crowd control on the route. It’s a short route, but can be crowded.

Health & Safety, Logistics Plan, manage and coordinate all event logistics to ensure a safe event, this includes but is not limited to: First Aid, security, road closures, stewarding/ crowd control, event radios, crew parking, protective barriers etc. Crewe Town Council is developing a list of Preferred Suppliers to assist with this. Liaise with Crewe Town Council regarding the information for the road closure, so the correct information can be submitted to Highways in good time. Crewe Town Council will complete the road closure request. Chase and check all public liability insurances, risk assessments/ method statements and other paperwork as necessary from everyone bringing content to the event. This must be done well in advance of the event and shared with Crewe Town Council in an organised way.

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Create the Event Safety Plan and event risk assessments as part of the Event Management Plan. This must be done in good time before the event. Liaise with the Safety Advisory Group and ensure all advice is followed. Provide and maintain adequate PPE for the crew of the event where necessary.

Community Engagement Workshops Deliver participation workshops ahead of the event, working with local artists and community groups. Work created must be shown at the event. Sessions might include choreography, costume making, lanterns for the parade (should be something innovative), some kind of simple LED light art etc . Suggestions are welcome and the exact nature of this delivery can be finalised later if necessary, but a draft budget allocation should be made at this stage.

Funding Assist Crewe Town Council in applying for funding to extend the community engagement, or other aspects of the programme.

Market & Fairground Operators Liaise with the operators of the Christmas Market and the Fairground Rides to ensure all their site requirements are met, and that all their paperwork is collected in good time and given to the right people. The Market operator themselves will curate and coordinate their traders. Fairground paperwork is required to be submitted to Cheshire East at least 12 weeks before the event along with a site plan and Event Safety Plan.

Marketing Adhere to strict marketing deadlines to ensure that the event is promoted effectively and provide promotional images and relevant copy to the marketing team in good time. Make sure programming information is given to Cat Radio for pre-event radio promo and key timings for the event itself.

Insurance The event itself can be covered on the Council’s own Public Liability Insurance. However, the contractor must have their own Public Liability Insurance to cover their own delivery, at a level not less than £5 million.

Evaluation Deliver thorough evaluation after the event. In 2019 the event was evaluated in a number of different ways, including Audience Finder surveys completed during the event, online post event surveys and peer review. Evaluation is an important part of the process and we’d like you to specify how you will manage the process.

BUDGET We have allocated a budget of £20K which should cover management, creative programming, participation workshops and evaluation. This should be your main focus. You do not need to include costs for market, funfair, road closure or local bands, although anticipate that some management time will be needed to coordinate them within the event infrastructure. This budget amount would be controlled by the contractor. Ideas for extending budgets with funding applications for participation work are welcome, so you can include ideas for an extension budget that fits this description, but it must be realistic.

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A further £10-£12k is available for event infrastructure, safety and power, including first aid and security. This budget amount may be controlled either by contractor or by Crewe Town Council. A further £4k is allocated for marketing and documentation. This budget amount will be controlled by Crewe Town Council and included here for information only. For significant and impactful ideas such as a video mapping projection that last longer than one night, additional budget can be made available up to £20k, depending on quality of proposal.

A payment schedule would be negotiated with the successful company, but invoices would be expected over the course of the year, tied to key points of delivery. A penultimate payment would occur directly after the event, followed by a final payment on delivery of evaluation.

TENDER

Your tender document must include:

• An outline of the proposed ideas you can bring to Lumen, including suggestions for community

participation. Highlight any strong partnerships you may have that may be of benefit. Indicate key

programming intentions for Memorial Square and Lyceum Square. If you have ideas for other areas,

include them too.

• Include ideas for the timeframe between Lumen and Christmas if you can.

• Evidence of experience in planning, managing and delivering comparable events.

• A brief paragraph outlining how you will ensure this event will be delivered in a safe and well

organised manner.

• This is an outdoors event, please provide a brief paragraph on how you would manage the event in

the case of extreme weather such as high winds or very heavy rain.

• Background and experience of the members of your team to be involved and their roles. Particularly

specify who will be our direct liaison, and if different, who will be the event manager.

• Whether you can support with the writing of funding applications.

• Key dates/ timeline.

• A draft budget. Where possible, all costs should be supplied net, excluding VAT. The budget should

provide sufficient detail to allow us to quickly analyse components of the proposal and clearly separate:

o Company fees and expenses, breakdown of the number of days your staff will spend on it.

o Creative Programming and content

o Community Participation workshops prior to the event

o Logistics/ Infrastructure

• How the event will be evaluated – how will success be measured?

• A copy of your current public liability insurance.

• One of the following from a previous event you will have carried out, as an example of the quality of

your delivery: Risk assessment/ Method Statement, Event Safety Plan or Event Management Plan.

• Evidence of your company’s climate change awareness eg your Environmental Sustainability Policy.

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EVALUATION OF TENDERS Tenders will be judged against the following criteria: Relevance/ Creative response

• Quality of artistic programme proposed

• How appropriate for a family audience.

• Will your ideas work outdoors?

• Is there key programming in Lyceum Sq and Memorial Sq?

• Longevity – one night only, or longer?

• Quality of potential artistic output for community participation.

• Is the proposal a good fit with the aims of the event?

• Is the proposal a good fit for the town? Experience

• Evidence of delivering similar events

• The experience and capability of key personnel

• Strength of connections and partnerships to bring original content

• Ability to support with funding applications

• Evidence of climate change awareness eg Environmental Sustainability Policy or similar. Planning

• Are the draft schedule/ key dates realistic?

• Example of a sample of one of these documents: RAMS, ESP, EMP

• Does the company demonstrate understanding of good event safety protocols?

• Description of poor weather contingency planning

• Evaluation – is the proposal realistic and adequate?

• Has the company’s PLI been provided? Budget

• Does the budget breakdown seem good value?

• Affordability. Local

• Is the company local to Crewe?

• Is there a clearly defined participation programme?

• Will any legacy or learning be left with participants after the event?

CONTRACT AWARD CONDITIONS Crewe Town Council reserves the right not to award any contract as a result of this tender process and is not bound to accept the lowest bid. Please note that canvassing of members of the Council or of any committee, directly or indirectly, regarding the awarding of this tender, will disqualify the applicant. Members of the Council or of any committee shall not solicit or recommend persons or organisations for such appointments; but, nevertheless, any such member may give a written testimonial of a candidate’s ability, experience or character for submission to the Council with an application for appointment, providing they are not part of the selection process.

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TIMELINE 6 April 2020 Invitation to Tender published 3 May 2020 5pm Deadline for submissions w/c 4 May 2020 Submissions opened and evaluated. w/c 11 May 2020 Contract is anticipated to be awarded. Please note, the timeline might change to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. If you have made us aware of your intention to submit a tender (by email on events@crewetowncouncil.gov.uk) we will keep you informed of any changes.

SUBMITTING YOUR TENDER If you are intending to submit a tender please let us know in advance on events@crewetowncouncil.gov.uk so that we can advise you of any extra information provided to other tenderers. Final tenders must be submitted by post as below:

IMPORTANT:

No tender can be considered unless sent in a plain, sealed, envelope labelled: TENDER/ LUMEN 2020 Tenders must be addressed and sent to : Accounts Department, Crewe Town Council, 1 Chantry Court, Forge Street, Crewe, CW1 2DL

Each submission must contain at least one hard copy of the tender but can also include an electronic copy on a memory stick or CD. STRICT DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Sun 3rd May 5pm Tenders received after this time/ date will not be considered. Please direct any questions to Edwina Rigby by email on events@crewetowncouncil.gov.uk. All questions and corresponding answers will be anonymised and sent to all those who have registered.

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Appendix i - Lumen 2019 Summary Evaluation See the Lumen 2019 film here: https://youtu.be/V1FYMFOi2E4 Summary evaluation report of Lumen 2019 is below. Summary of Evaluation Results

• High, Medium and Low engaged Audience segments were represented, showing that the event was reaching people who have varying levels of engagement with culture

• The event is seen as a hugely positive event for Crewe, with over 90% surveyed responding that the event is good for the town and its reputation and that the event has a significant local impact.

• Artistic quality of the event scored well overall, with international profile content scoring very well.

• A positive view of Crewe is being developed as a result of Lumen, however the extent of this reach is unclear. A strategic marketing plan is required to target audiences further afield.

• Young people felt the event was positive in involving families, however they felt there was nothing specifically aimed at the teenage age group.

• Local participation is growing, through the extension of activity such as the Lantern Parade, however

there are opportunities developing for greater co-production with local communities.

Summary Recommendations Marketing: Develop a strong marketing strategy to promote the event, with really high quality design, imagery and messaging, which matches the aspiration to be an international standard event, and to reach potential visitors from outside of Crewe as well as engaging Crewe residents. Young people: Create a plan to develop more offer for young people in the event, involving young people to steer the plan. Collaboration: Network more to enable more touring international work to be shown in Crewe. Artistic Quality: Partner with other organisations in order to develop co-commissioning and apply for significant funds. Continue to involve professional creative producers to provide artistic steer. Participation: Maximise the opportunities to involve communities in co-production and content creation for the event, linking with community development. Post-event survey results • 60 people responded to the online survey. • 92% of respondents were resident in Crewe, 8% visitors. • 92% agreed that audience interaction with the heliosphere helped to create a good atmosphere. • 57% of respondents said that the event had made them explore more parts of Crewe town centre. • 93% felt that events like Lumen encourage residents to view Crewe town centre in a more positive light. • 93% felt that events like Lumen encourage visitors to view Crewe town centre in a more positive light. • 73% said the event had made them more likely to visit Crewe town centre again in the run up to Christmas.

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Appendix ii

Map Area maps can be viewed here: https://maps.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ce/webmapping

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Appendix iii

Location Photos Memorial Square looking towards the Municipal Building Memorial Square looking towards the mezzanine

Market Square looking towards Queensway Queensway showing the new white hoardings

Lyceum Square looking towards the Lyceum Theatre Light installation in the courtyard of Christ Church

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Appendix iv General photos from Lumen 2018 & 2019