2.4.1 Governance
In contrast to many ECoC, Umeå2014 was not administered by an arm's-length or independent agency, but by the Municipality of Umeå. The municipality’s Capital of Culture Board took overall responsibility and oversaw the delivery team, which was comprised of employees of the municipality (of which some were existing employees transferred from other posts and others were new recruits) and led by the management team. This management team was comprised of the Executive Director (until his departure in 2014), the Artistic Director, the Head of Communication and Administrative Manager. Three sub-teams took responsibility for specific areas of activity, namely the Programme Team, Communication Team and Operations Team. Projects and events were produced by cultural operators, mostly from Umeå but also from elsewhere in northern Sweden and beyond.
Prior to the award of the title in 2009, the Board was merely an advisory body with no decision-making powers. Once the title had been awarded, the Board was then given such powers, including responsibility for the budget of the ECoC. This included the authority to approve projects receiving co-financing in excess of SEK 100,000 (€ 11,000); authority to approve co-financing for less than that amount was delegated to the Artistic Director. The Board enjoyed both cross-party support and stability: it was led by the Mayor of Umeå, Marie-Louise Rönnmark, and comprised seven elected politicians from the municipality, drawn from the main parties, each of whom served continuously from 2010 and 2015. From December 2014, the Board relinquished its decision-making role regarding the allocation of funds and reverted to an advisory and scrutiny role, particularly regarding the follow-up of projects already funded.
In contrast, the membership of the delivery team proved more unstable, particularly in the early years of the development phase. Like all ECoC, this reflects the challenge of building, in a short period, a new team with the necessary expertise and putting in place effective management arrangements where none existed before. The Head of Communication left in 2011, whilst the Administrative Manager left towards the end of 2012 and the staff member responsible for corporate sponsorship left in 2013. These departures caused some difficulties during the preparation phase, for example, in terms of handling local media, putting in place administrative systems and recruiting corporate sponsors.
During the course of 2013, the situation became more stable as these three key positions were filled. For example, the appointment of a new Administrative Manager enabled effective management processes to be introduced, freeing up the programme team to develop the cultural programme. Moreover, with a stable management team in place, it was also possible to recruit the necessary staff for the three main teams, namely the "Programme team", the "Communication team" and the "Operations team"; again, like all ECoC, there was a need to scale up in the months leading up to the title year. The situation was further improved as more financial commitments were secured during autumn 2012, notably from the Municipality, the Swedish Ministry for Culture (which allocated funding via the Arts Council) and the European Commission (i.e. the Melina Mercouri Prize). However, the amount of corporate sponsorship secured was ultimately lower than planned (as discussed in section 2.4.2).
There was one further significant change in the Umeå 2014 team. The Executive Director, Jan Björinge, who had been City Manager at the time of the first application and who had led the team from the selection stage, announced his departure in January 2014, although he remained in post until May 2014. Fredrik Lindegren, who had been the director of a local theatre company and who had been appointed as Artistic Director prior to the second selection meeting, gradually took over the main responsibility for the team. With the management arrangements in place and the funding confirmed, it seems that there was a smooth hand-over of leadership from Mr Björinge to Dan Vähä, the Administrative Manager, with little if any adverse effect on the implementation of activities during the title-year.
2.4.2 Funding
Umeå’s initial application proposed a budget of SEK 410m, equivalent to just over € 44m, as shown in the table below.
Table 2.1 Proposed sources of finance (initial application)
Source Total proposed
income 2009- 14 (SEK m) Total proposed income 2009- 14 (€ m) % of total proposed income Ministry of Culture 170 18.3 41%
City of Umeå Municipality 100 10.8 24%
Corporate sponsorship 50 5.5 12%
Region, European Union and
Ticket sales 90 9.7 22%
Data provided by Umeå2014 states the eventual budget was € 45,6m for the period 2009-14, which is higher than the budget proposed in the initial application. This figure makes Umeå one of the best-financed ECoC on a per capita basis.
Table 2.2 Actual income
Financing sources Total income 2009-
14 (€m)*
% of total income
City of Umeå Municipality 9.9 22
Ministry of Culture 7.6 17
Other State funding 7.5 16
Regional funding 5.7 12 Corporate sponsorship 3.5 8 EU (Melina Mercouri) 1.5 4 Ticket sales 2.5 5 Other 4.4 10 Other EU projects 2.2 5 International partners 0.8 2 Total 45,6 100 * SEK 100 = € 9.9
Umeå2014’s co-creation approach meant that the financing of the ECoC was provided according to a model that is different from most ECoC. Core funding of the ECoC was provided by Umeå Municipality (€ 9.9m), the Swedish State (€ 7.6m) and the EU in the form of the Melina Mercouri Prize (€ 1.5m). This funding was administered by the Umeå2014 team within the municipality. As well as covering the core costs of the ECoC (marketing, personnel, etc.) and projects produced by the Umeå2014 team, this funding also served as the co-financing for projects supported by Umeå2014. Other funding for projects (included in the table above) was paid by the public bodies and corporate sponsors direct to the organisations implementing the projects.
Within this total of € 45,6m, expenditure directly provided by the Umeå2014 team (part of the municipality) amounted to € 22.6m, of which € 9.3m during the title year.
Table 2.3 Actual direct expenditure by Umeå2014 team Expenditure Expenditure in 2014 (€m)** Total expenditure 2009-14 (€m)** % of total expenditure Cultural Programme 7.1 11.7 62 Marketing 0.8 2.1 11 Personnel 0.8 2.4 13 Operating expenditure 0.2 0.5 3 Reserve - 0.5 3 “Caught by [Umeå]” Tour - 1.5 8 Total 8.8 18.8 100 Personnel in-kind 0.4 2.1 55 Operating expenditure in-kind 0.1 1.7 45 Total Umeå2014 (project) 9.3 22.6 100
The Melina Mercouri Prize was paid by the European Commission in 2013, following the recommendation of the second meeting of the monitoring and advisory panel. The Prize money was used to fund the Art competition “Artists Caught by [Umeå]” and the campaign tour “Caught by [Umeå]” tour in the autumn of 2013. Using the funding in this way provided two benefits. First, it provided clear evidence of EU funding providing “European added value”. Second, it enabled the tour to take place without funding from the municipality; this would have been difficult, given the restrictions on using municipal funds for activity taking place abroad.
Additional EU funding (not included in the totals above) was received directly by several projects within the cultural programme. For example, the CORNERS project received funding from the EU’s Culture Programme to enable exchange transnational co-operations between cultural operators in different European countries, particularly those based in outer regions. Umeå’s Littfest was also involved in an EU-funded project within the Culture Programme. The EU's LIFE+ programme co-financed “Trash”, a musical that promoted environmental sustainability. The Green Citizens project, also funded by LIFE+, held its final conference in Umeå.16 A project based on
the long tradition of storytelling in Northern Sweden received ERDF funding, as did some projects relating to the cultural and creative industries in Umeå. However, many projects found it difficult to secure EU funding, given the timing of the title-year as some of the new EU programmes for the 2014-2020 were not operational in sufficient time.
The original intention was that corporate sponsorship of € 5.5m would be secured for the ECoC and its cultural programme. However, Umeå2014 faced some severe difficulties in preparing its “offer” for corporate sponsors and thus also in attracting sponsors. Umeå, as well as the wider Västerbotten county, lacked a strong tradition of corporate sponsorship of culture (Balticgruppen’s recent investments in cultural infrastructure and venues being very much an exception); considerable effort would have been required to create the necessary understanding between potential sponsors and cultural operators. Indeed, local and regional companies had tended instead to sponsor sports events and teams. As well as this difficult external environment, there were also two significant difficulties within the approach taken by Umeå2014. First, one of the key members of staff responsible for co-ordinating the corporate sponsorship strategy left the team in 2013, creating a lack of capacity. Second, a sports marketing company was contracted to secure sponsors but failed to make significant progress, perhaps lacking the necessary experience and contacts required for sponsorship of a cultural event such as the ECoC – all the more difficult, since the company was not based in Umeå but was a Stockholm-based subsidiary of a Finnish company. The contract was therefore cancelled mid-way through 2013.
At that point (around September or October 2013), the task of securing sponsorship was brought in-house to be overseen by the recently-appointed Administrative Manager, Dan Vähä, and managed day-to-day by a communication consultant, Malin Johansson. Several companies had been in negotiation with Umeå2014 (some via the sports marketing company) for some considerable time. The priority was therefore to restart these negotiations and bring them to a successful conclusion and agreements were mostly signed in November 2013. However, there was clearly very limited scope to approach and negotiate with a large number of companies at that late stage and the original targets therefore had to be scaled down somewhat. This included reducing the proposed four or five levels of sponsorship down to just two; unlike some other ECoC, Umeå2014 was not able to involve a large number of SMEs as corporate “members” providing small amounts of money. A separate company (owned by the municipality) was created to handle corporate sponsorship, in part to keep such funding separate from funding provided by the municipality. However, in practice, it proved more efficient for most funding to be paid directly by the sponsors to projects and not channelled via this company.17
The main sponsor was Balticgruppen, which provided SEK 15m (€ 1.61m) directly to projects, such as those managed by NorrlandsOperan. In return, Balticgruppen received profile and certain promotional rights, including use of the Umeå2014 logo. Balticgruppen also worked closely with the Umeå2014 team on various aspects of the communication and generally had a close relationship with the team.
The other sponsors each provided around SEK 1-2m (€ 0.11m - € 0.22m) either in cash or in kind. They included:
Företagarna Västerbotten, a regional representative in a national organisation representing 75,000 businesses in Sweden;
VK newspaper, which provided support for projects and free advertising space in local media;
17 This funding is included in the total income of € 45,6m of the ECoC (Table 2.2) but not the actual direct expenditure by Umeå2014 team of € 22.6m (Table 2.3).
Motorcentralen, which made a fleet of ten cars available to organisations implementing projects and managed centrally by the Umeå2014 team;
Swedavia, the airport management company (responsible for Umeå airport, amongst others), which provided free advertising at Umeå airport;
Ultra, the local bus company; and
Swedbank, which provided direct financing of projects involving children and young people.
Whilst the number of corporate sponsors was small, those that were interviewed reported their satisfaction with their sponsorship of Umeå2014 and the benefits that they gained. For example, Motorcentralen reported that it had held more promotional events in 2014, on the back of its sponsorship of Umeå2014, than in previous years. Clients of Motorcentralen had provided positive feedback on ECoC events that they had been involved in and the company had enjoyed greater visibility and profile than it would otherwise have had. Both the corporate sponsors interviewed (Motorcentralen and Företagarna) reported that they would be more likely to sponsor cultural events in future, as a result of Umeå2014.
2.4.3 Marketing and communication
Umeå2014 sought to promote the ECoC and its cultural programme to local, national and international audiences. In doing so, the Umeå2014 team faced many of the internal and external challenges that are common to most ECoC.
A first priority of the team was to build the capacity to undertake the marketing and communication of the ECoC. Activity before 2012 had been relatively limited, in part due to an unfilled vacancy in a key communication post and the lack of a specific budget for marketing and communication. As a result, some plans were in place but required further development and a mechanism to implement them. A key turning point was the appointment of the Head of Communication, Elisabeth Lind, in March 2012. From this point on, the team began to develop the necessary capacity, with the Communication Team reaching a peak of nine people in 2014. Some difficulties were faced in finding suitable staff; there was an initial expectation that communication staff could be recruited from within the municipality, although this proved not to be the case and some appointments were consequently delayed.
During 2012, the marketing strategy and plan were also developed and a dedicated budget was allocated; some 7m SEK was initially allocated in 2013, which was later increased to 18m SEK by the title year. The marketing plan was designed to reflect both the essence and the detail of the ECoC and the cultural programme. It therefore emphasised the Open Source approach based on participation and co-creation, as well as the values of “curiosity" and “passion”. The plan was also intended to support the municipality’s growth strategy for 2050 by helping to make Umeå2014 a catalyst for (further) culture-driven growth. More specifically, the overall goals of the marketing plan were to:
Increase commitment for Umeå2014
Attract co-creation
Strengthen Umeå’s profile as an interesting and attractive city of culture
As with other ECoC, a major challenge in the development period was to communicate with local media and local citizens at a time when the cultural programme remained relatively undeveloped. In the absence of “good news” stories, the Umeå2014 team faced a certain amount of criticism from local media, to which it was necessary to respond. A priority in 2012 was therefore to set up a news desk to issue press releases and to publicise examples of proposed projects. Whilst the local media continued to express their broad support for the ECoC, it was perhaps not until early 2014 – when sufficient staff were in post and the opening ceremony took place – that the local coverage became more positive. Local receptiveness to the ECoC was also encouraged by the recruitment of local people as “ambassadors”, who signed formal commitments and were trained to fulfil this role within Umeå.
Internationally, a key objective was simply to make Umeå2014 known to a wide international audience and to attract tourists and visitors, who might otherwise have never heard of the city. The implementation of the international dimension of the marketing plan was based upon a recognition of the limits of what was possible within the time and budget available. Indeed, like all ECoC, Umeå2014 did not have the funds to communicate a year-long, diverse programme of events directly and extensively to all its possible international audiences. Instead, the emphasis was on working in partnership with other stakeholders and on strategic and selective communication with travel journalists and other international media. As well as the ECoC “brand”, communication activities emphasised Umeå’s remoteness, the content of the programme and Sami culture as unique selling points.
In this context, the major international communication event was the “Caught by [Umeå]” tour of European cities in the autumn of 2013 (described above), which was led by Umeå2014 and undertaken in partnership with VisitSweden, Visit Umeå, and the University of Umeå. Whilst the tour served as an event in its own right, attracting around 57,000 visitors across the different cities, it served a very important purpose of reaching many foreign journalists and travel writers. As a result of the tour, it was reported that at least 14 foreign press visits were made to Umeå to report on the ECoC, including a representation from Lonely Planet.18 The timing of the tour also
proved beneficial in allowing direct promotion of the opening ceremony to foreign journalists.
The drive to attract tourists was undertaken in partnership with the local tourist office, Visit Umeå. Visit Umeå is a new destination company that started operations in 2013. It is co-owned by the municipality and by local businesses (mostly those in the tourism sector) who own about 51%. There was also collaboration with Visit Sweden, the national tourism agency, which saw the potential for Umeå2014 to contribute to its target of doubling tourist visits to Sweden by 2020. Both organisations collaborated with Umeå2014 in the Caught by [Umeå] tour. Visit Sweden also played a key role in facilitating contacts with foreign journalists and with embassies. Umeå2014 collaborated with Rīga2014 to promote the ECoC in the Culture Lounge at the Internationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) travel fair in Berlin in 2013.
Nationally, the communication activities of Umeå2014 faced the challenge of convincing a perhaps sceptical – and Stockholm-based – national media and of attracting visitors from other parts of Sweden to make the journey to Umeå. Efforts to reach these audiences were supported by a representation of Umeå2014 in Stockholm, allowing direct access to national media and cultural institutions based there. As mentioned before, a prelaunch took place in Stockholm one year before the opening weekend, held in the Kulturhuset, a public space for all people in Stockholm. This programme release was carried out with participation from partners in Umeå, project owners and national and international media. The event was also broadcasted on the Umeå2014 website. Whilst many national journalists did attend the opening ceremony, stakeholders were in broad agreement that the national media coverage of the ECoC had been disappointing, i.e. less extensive and less positive in tone than international coverage.
The Umeå2014 commissioned a media analysis study which covered eight European countries along with Russia and China. This confirmed the positive tone in the international coverage, in particular about the individual cultural events taking place, including the opening ceremony. There were also a handful of examples of critical or negative coverage, which were related to the notion of culture-driven growth and a (perceived) lack of coverage of the Sami. Most of the coverage was published in January or February 2014, with especially the German, Spanish and Danish press being active.
2.4.4 Local research and evaluation
Research into the effects and results of Umeå2014 was commissioned or undertaken by different stakeholders before, during and after the title-year. In some cases, the results of this research were made available to this evaluation and have informed the