Congratulations to the team who took on the huge undertaking of delivering the All Party Parliamentary Group report ‘The Case for Culture:What Northern Culture Needs to Rebuild, Rebalance and Recover’.

CTConsults is proud to have supported this crucial, laudable and urgent work. The publishing of this report is a significant step towards positioning culture as the fastest way to achieve the Levelling Up ambitions for our region. The cross-party support for the report demonstrates the shared understanding that culture is a vital tool for regeneration and recovery.

In particular, we are pleased to see the prioritisation of improving digital infrastructure  – we are passionate that digital transformation within the cultural and tourism sectors is essential to drive sector growth and innovation.

Collaboration talks to heart of our core values. This is the first time the North has come together as a region to champion and create a pan-Northern vision for the cultural sector, and we are hopeful it will bring together many of the initiatives and programmes we have been involved with and advised on over the last 10 years to support destination marketing, in relation to cultural assets.

Many of our current and former clients are featured case-studies  in the report – both urban and rural – such as York where we delivered a place brand, and Cumbria where we are currently developing a cultural strategy.

How will CTConsults implement the recommendations of this report? We will continue to commit to working with our clients to ensure culture is ingrained in all sectors. We care deeply about cultural- and place-based collaboration, and will continue to help places prominently position culture, heritage and tourism within their investment principals as tool for Levelling Up across all our work, whether cultural strategy, placemaking, digital transformation or place brand.

Once again, thanks and applause to the Northern Culture Club on this achievement, and we look forward to working with partners to realise its aims.

Before Christmas, Amy, Alex & Andrew visited West Cumbria to conduct a stakeholder workshop, with our associate John Knell of The Intelligence Agency. CTConsults has been commissioned to develop a Cultural Strategy for the area, a vast and rugged region which encompasses industrial and maritime heritage, futuristic technologies, sandy coast and the quieter areas of the Lake District National Park. 

The workshop was held at the Florence Arts Centre, located at a former haematite mine just outside of Egremont. When the mine opened in the late 19th century, it was the deepest in Europe; at its closure in 2008, it was the last working deep mine on the continent. Since then, the site has been home to an active artist community and arts centre, comprising studios, theatre & events space, gallery, café and shop.  The arts centre is one of the partners on the recently announced Creative People & Places project for West Cumbria.

The former mining infrastructure looms over the arts centre, and iron ore dust coats everything with a striking, rich red pigment. It is an atmospheric location which speaks to both the industrial and agricultural heritage of the area. On the rainy day we visited, even the puddles were bright red. Pigment from the mine has been used for centuries by local farmers, who use it to mark the fleeces of the famous Cumbrian Herdwick sheep. 

Now, the artists working at Florence use this pigment to create their own paints, inks and pencils. The Florence Paintmakers use locally-sourced materials and traditional techniques to manufacture the products by hand. This range of high-quality art materials can be purchased here and provides a sustainable source of income for the Centre. More information and images can be found here.

This is a brilliant example of creative placemaking, where the very ground itself is used to create art which is distinctly and uniquely of this place. The CTConsults team looks forward to exploring more of West Cumbria on further visits, as the project progresses.

As 2022 arrives, CTConsults is delighted to welcome some new and old faces to the team.

Starting with creativetourist.com, where we cover events, activities and places across the North of England, we are thrilled that Johnny James and Emily Waller have made the transition from freelancers to staff members. Johnny becomes Managing Editor and Music Editor, in between performing with his band The Blinders. Emily is looking after sales and campaigns for our valued clients and partners.

Sophie Young has started as Digital Data Analyst to support our expanding digital team. Sophie will be preparing insight reports, analysis and findings for our clients, such as for West Midlands Growth Company in their readiness to host the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games this year.

Finally, we are joined by new Place Consultant and former client, Amy Lewis. Amy will be helping meet the demands of our growing place-branding, masterplanning and cultural strategy projects, and is already enjoying building relationships with clients up and down the country.

Welcome, everyone.

Have a look at our Team page for more details about all our team members.

After 10 years, one of our founding Directors Helen Palmer has made the difficult decision to leave CTConsults at the end of September.

With full support from the team at CTConsults, Helen has chosen to step aside so that she can concentrate on working more directly with the cultural sector and to build on her 15 years working as one half of Palmer Squared, a marketing and audience development consultancy established with her brother Andrew. This will include working with the outdoor arts experts Walk the Plank on their major, once in a lifetime Festival UK* 2022 commission – Green Space, Dark Skies.

Helen commented: ‘It’s been an extraordinary 10 years as part of a great team working to build CTConsults into the agency it is today. I’ve been lucky to work in some amazing destinations with clients across the UK and overseas. But it’s now time for me to focus on what really brings me joy and that’s working directly with and as part of the cultural sector to support and enable organisations to engage with a diverse range of audiences to explore creativity in all its forms. I wish the company all the very best for the future, not least because my brother Andrew is still one of the Directors!’

Under Helen’s stewardship alongside founding Directors Alex Saint, Andrew Palmer, Dan Lukas, and Mat Bend, CTConsults has evolved from its initial beginnings focusing on cultural tourism consultancy and its award-winning creativetourist.com what’s on listings site, into a place-based consultancy with key strengths in digital transformation and place branding.

Helen’s highlights of the last 10 years include developing Norfolk and Suffolk’s first cultural tourism strategy which led to increased investment and support for the region’s cultural sector. Amidst many other highlights, she led on creating London’s first cultural tourism strategy which helped to inform the Borough of Culture initiative, supported Bristol and Bath on their collaborative two-city cultural tourism journey, created new visioning strategies for National Museums Northern Ireland’s Ulster Folk Museum and Ulster American Folk Park, and delivered cultural tourism workshops in Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

Over the summer we’ve been busy expanding our team to meet the demands of our growing client base and workload.

Our new Operations Manager Pam McNally has joined us to manage our team, lead on our finances, work with our Directors on business planning, resourcing and generally ensure the smooth running of the office.

Following our appointment by West Midlands Growth Company to deliver the Digital Visitor Engagement strand of their Business and Tourism Programme, leveraging benefits from the upcoming Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, we have appointed Ollie Ferres as our Digital Projects Manager and are currently recruiting a Digital Analyst.

As part of the consortium appointed by Fáilte Ireland to deliver major strands of their ambitious Digital that Delivers programme, we have recruited Megan McGurren as the Bookable Experience Development Project Coordinator, Eleanor Higgins as the CRM Manager and we are pleased to once again be working with consultants Anh Nguyen, Carly Straughan and Mike Newman.

Welcome all.

Along with our regular associates HemingwayDesign, we have been commissioned by Swindon Council to develop a place brand for its Heritage Action Zone.

Swindon was the epicentre of the Great Western Railway and much of its railway heritage is still present within the designated Heritage Action Zone area – from the railway village housing, to the Health Hydro, Farringdon Park, The Cricketer’s Arms, the Carriage works and the Mechanics Institute, to name a few of the iconic buildings and infrastructure. You may be less aware that is was also a fascinating model community – build around very contemporary values of home, work, learning and wellbeing. Following major grant awards the council is investing in the regeneration of the area over five years.

For a quick overview of this remarkable history have a look at Google Arts & Culture’s exhibit of Swindon: the heritage of a railway town produced by Historic England.

We have been appointed by the West Midlands Growth Company (WMGC) to deliver a major Digital Visitor Engagement project for the region, as part of the government funded Business and Tourism Programme (BATP).

The BATP is supporting the showcasing opportunity of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games to drive trade, investment and visitors to the West Midlands region and the UK.

Its Digital Visitor Engagement strand will create a new Digital Visitor Information Network that connects the destinations and tourist attractions throughout the West Midlands via a centralised listings platform. The new platform will provide increased opportunities for visitors to discover and book culture, leisure and tourism products via multiple consumer channels.

Delivery of the project comes at a critical time for tourism in the region, with preparations well underway for next year’s Commonwealth Games and Cultural Festival, as well as Coventry recently kickstarting its delayed celebrations as the UK City of Culture 2021.

To support The Digital Visitor Information Network, we will lead a digital marketing collaboration bringing cultural partners together to work on region-wide marketing campaigns that can deliver measurable results through improved reporting and ongoing optimisation of digital engagement.

Dan Lukas, Digital Director, said: “This is a really exciting time for the West Midlands and it’s fantastic to be working with the West Midlands Growth Company to make sure that all destinations and attractions throughout the region will have the digital capabilities they need to maximise their own tourism products and offer.

“The Digital Visitor Engagement work will make it easier for visitors to discover the culture and tourism offer at a time when all eyes will be on Birmingham and the wider region in the build-up to, and beyond, next year’s Commonwealth Games.

“This is a chance to harness digital in a way that both drives direct visitor engagement with individual attractions while also taking a holistic approach to showcase the wider visitor offer by responding to how today’s visitors research and book online, using many different digital channels.“

Becky Hall, Head of Visitor Attraction, West Midlands Growth Company, said: “We look forward to working with CTConsults, whose expertise will prove valuable as we deliver the digital visitor engagement element of our Business and Tourism Programme. This new digital project will lead to transformational ways of interacting with cultural and tourism industry partners across our West Midlands destinations.

“By increasing our region’s tourism digital know-how and collaborating to promote the depth of our cultural offer, we will give visitors a seamless experience of finding information, and booking events, festivals and performances.

“Tourism brings so many benefits to the West Midlands, from improved quality of life to job opportunities, and this programme will contribute to the long-term resilience of the sector.”

As England’s cultural sector continues to open up, thanks to Culture Recovery Funding from Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, we are launching over 20 new town and city destination guides, expanding our existing content and reach beyond the city regions of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. These free-to-access online guides showcase the best of the North’s cultural offer through the award-winning what’s on listings website www.creativetourist.com, from Blackpool to Sunderland, Crewe to Hull, Penrith to Ilkley, Buxton to Newcastle, plus many more culturally rich places.

The Culture Recovery Fund investment enabled us to retain our full independent editorial team of artform specialists and recruit new writers representing different parts of the Northern region. Tapping into this expertise, the local knowledge of the team of writers, and recommendations from cultural partners in each place, the destination guides uncover hidden gems as well as cultural flagship venues and attractions.

During the lockdown as the cultural sector pivoted to online experiences, we conducted adaptations to the website to enable inclusion and promotion of online events, also supported through the Culture Recovery Fund grant.

Creativetourist.com has a loyal and growing following of culturally-engaged audiences keen to reconnect in person with the cultural offer locally but also further afield. As towns and cities work hard to recover from the impact of Covid-19, we are working with partners across the North to promote these new online guides to encourage visitors to explore what’s on their doorstep as well as venture out to experience new cultural destinations.

#HereForCulture

Most people know us for creativetourist.com while in reality, this only a small part of what we do. Over the past 10 years CTConsults has completed many complex projects, ranging from writing the Cultural Tourism Strategy for the Mayor of London, to implementing large-scale digital transformation projects for venues and places across the UK and Ireland. The new brand aims to simplify what we do, and give the people behind CTConsults a little more of the spotlight. 

As part of our recent rebranding, we redesigned our brand, and our website and during this process realised that we wanted to add an aesthetic element that represented the creativity and culture that we are engaged in every day. We decided the Manchester based illustrator Jane Bowyer would be a good fit for what we wanted to achieve – Jane’s illustrations balance playfulness with purpose to deliver work that is both beautifully crafted and memorable.

What Jane had to say: ‘We wanted to create something that was clean, bold, and personable, that represented creativity and culture. I worked with texture in this way to give the CTConsults illustration style its own distinctive and recognisable look and feel. The final product is a result of the design team and I working closely together to create something that is eye-catching and integrates well with the design and layout of the new website.’ 

Website: bowyerjane.co.uk
Instagram: @bowyerjane
Twitter: @bowyerjane