WELCOME Lakes Culture’s spring event, Lakes Ignite 2016, supported by United Utilities, showcased outstanding contemporary art experiences inspired by the stunning landscape between 30 April and 22 May.

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 2 Three very distinctive art experiences were commissioned with a theme reflecting the region’s long and complex relationship with water in all its forms: a Museum of Water and water bar; a series of Nocturnal Rainbow light installations on Coniston, Ullswater and Grasmere using the very latest LED technology and paying homage to Turner’s painting ‘A Shower, Buttermere’; and opportunities to join one of the UK’s leading digital artists to create landscape art using mobile devices.

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 3 Alongside the three art experience highlights, Lakes Ignite 2016 curator Aileen McEvoy, selected a range of significant cultural events to be part of the programme to illustrate the wealth of cultural activity in the region. These included events celebrating Beatrix Potter’s 150th anniversary, the Freerange Comedy Festival, Keswick Jazz Festival, theatre by and Howard Goodall, and thought-provoking exhibitions by Stuart Walker and British sculptor, Laura Ford.

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 4 A GREAT SUCCESS ‘Agreed’ or ‘Strongly Agreed’ that Lakes Ignite improves 91% the view of the Lake District as a cultural destination of people said they would recommend Lakes Ignite to 99% friends and relatives felt Lakes Ignite has increased their likelihood 74% of recommending the Lake District as a cultural ‘Agreed’ or ‘Strongly destination Agreed’ that Lakes Ignite 90% highlights the cultural offer in the Lake District of people said that their experience of Lakes Ignite 66% has increased their likelihood of attending other arts and ‘Agreed’ or ‘Strongly Agreed’ cultural events in the area that Lakes Ignite helps create 94% a unique visitor experience

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 5 A GREAT SUCCESS

of all people attending Lakes Ignite events of people from the target 1/3 were staying overnight geographical areas – 66% northern cities, London and south-east – said Lakes Ignite was the main of visitors to Lakes Ignite reason or one of the reasons came from the target for their visit to the area 1/5 geographical locations

the mean spend of the total audience per group of visitors had travelled £131 to the event from 54% outside of estimated spend Lakes Ignite £90K 2016 brought to the region Lakes Ignite 2016 evaluation was based upon 398 surveys with a statistical confidence interval of +/- 4.05%. WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 6 READ ALL ABOUT IT

To target our priority audiences we invited key north-west arts and travel writers to attend a weekend of art and culture in the Lake District whilst celebrating the launch of #LakesIgnite 2016. We liaised with a range of cultural attractions to build a two-day itinerary. In attendance were Sacha Waldron, North West Editor of The Skinny; Zoe Dawes, the Quirky Traveller, and Poet In Motion, Kirstie Pelling. In response to the launch event and experiencing Seven Nocturnal Rainbows on Coniston, Kirstie was inspired to create the following poem and video. http://poetinmotion.org/lakes-ignite-seven-nocturnal-rainbows/

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 7 READ ALL ABOUT IT

In total 31 pieces of online and offline coverage were generated across national, regional and local publications with a total AEV value in excess of £80K and a combined audience reach of 32K. Key titles included The Skinny, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, ITV Border, BBC Radio Cumbria, Travel GBI, Cumbria Life and local newspapers The Westmorland Gazette, North West Evening Mail, News & Star and Lakeland Radio.

Following findings from Lakes Ignite 2015 we focussed on social media and word-of-mouth as the key marketing channels. 25% of visitors found out about Lakes Ignite 2016 through people talking about it and a further 28% attended from information they saw on websites and social media.

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 8 READ ALL ABOUT IT

@LakesCulture www.lakesculture.co.uk

@LakesCulture has an authentic audience In the run up to the Lakes Ignite 2016, of over 4K followers, the majority of whom are 27 feature pages and 32 events listings were from our target area – 67% from the north of added to the Lakes Culture website. England, London and south-east England – and are actively engaged with arts and culture. During the Lakes Ignite promotional period the Lakes Culture website had 18,205 page views, During the Lakes Ignite 2016 promotional the Lakes Ignite homepage was viewed 2,313 period @LakesCulture posted 361 tweets, times, and the top ten most popular pages over 40% of which were retweeted just were viewed 11,753 times. over 900 times. Our tweets earned 820K impressions, equating to our messages being seen 13.4K times per day.

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 9 The two promotional films for Lakes Ignite 2016 READ ALL ABOUT IT were viewed 7,692 times.

To view both films in high-resolution please visit the Lakes Culture YouTube channel. SEVEN NOCTURNAL RAINBOWS FOR THE ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT

BY CHARLES MONKHOUSE

Photo: Nocturnal Rainbow on Ullswater by Carl Whitham WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 11 @LakesCulture WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 12 MUSEUM OF WATER

BY AMY SHARROCKS

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 13 21ST CENTURY LANDSCAPE ART CLASS

BY JOSEPH ANTHONY CONNOR

Image: ‘View from Brockhole’ by Joseph Anthony Connor WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 14 Aileen McEvoy Amy Sharrocks BIG THANKS Arts Admin Arts Council England Brewery Arts Centre Carl Whitham Lakes Culture would like to thank the following Castle Green Hotel people and organisations for helping to make Charles Monkhouse Creative Concern Lakes Ignite 2016 a successful event that has Cumbria Tourism given people a contemporary and memorable David White Forestry Commission England experience of the Lake District, Cumbria. Glenridding Sailing Centre Jill Jennings Joseph Connor Kirstie Pelling Lake District National Park Lake District Summer Music Lakeland Arts Mountain Goat National Trust Peter and Jack Lawson Research Team EU Sacha Waldron South Lakeland District Council The Brantwood Trust The Daffodil Hotel & Spa Theatre by the Lake United Utilities Windermere Lake Cruises Wordsworth Trust Zoe Dawes

WWW.LAKESCULTURE.CO.UK 15 For more information about Lakes Ignite 2016 and Lakes Culture please contact Usha Mistry, Project Manager, Lakes Culture [email protected]

@LakesCulture www.lakesculture.co.uk