Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED: That all items on the agenda should be webcast.

It was noted that apologies were received from Councillor Hogg.

There were no Substitute Members present.

There were no Visiting Members.

Emily Hirons, General Manager, and Natalie Kirk, Events Manager, of Kent Life, were present to speak on item 8 of the agenda.

Natalie Price, General Manager of the Hazlitt Arts Centre, was present to speak on item 9 of the agenda.

Jennifer Hunt, Local Economy Project Officer, was present to speak on item 10 of the agenda.

There were no disclosures by Members or Officers.

RESOLVED: That all items on the agenda should be taken in public as proposed.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting of the meeting of 28^th January 2014 be approved as a correct record and signed, subject to the following changes:

·  That apologies be noted for Councillor Barned; and

·  Laura Case’s job title, on page 6 of the agenda, be changed to ‘Cultural Services Manager’ rather than ‘Culture and Leisure Manager’.

Interview with Emily Hirons, General Manager and Natalie Kirk, Events Manager, of Kent Life.

Emily Hirons, General Manager, and Natalie Kirk, Events Manager of Kent Life were invited to speak on item 8: Events Review- Kent Life.

Emily Hirons explained to the committee that Kent Life was an open air heritage museum. Kent Life had a target audience of families with young children and received 125,000 visitors last year. Kent Life ran 21 events at the museum throughout the year last year. Each event was themed seasonally and structured around the four themes of the museum:

·  Fun and Family

·  Vintage Village

·  Gardens

·  Farmyard and Nature

It was explained to the committee by Emily Hirons that structuring events around the seasons helped to bring visitors to the attraction throughout the year. Profits from events subsidised other activities on the site, for example keeping the Oast House lit. Events made up more than half of Kent Life’s revenue, but accounted for less than half of its days open.

Emily Hirons informed the committee that the Safety Advisory Group- a body made up of representatives from Maidstone Borough Council as well as emergency services to advise events organisers around safety- had been very helpful.

In response to a question from the committee, Emily Hirons reported that Kent Life’s Events budget was £38,000 and the marketing budget was £20,000. Most of this was spent with local businesses. The PR value of the events that Kent Life runs has been estimated at around £1.4 million.

Emily Hirons highlighted the value to the local area that their events brought. Emily Hirons made the following observations:

·  On event days local transport and hotels were busy;

·  Local catering businesses did well with their on-site stalls, some taking up to £4,000 a day;

·  Other local stallholders had an opportunity to make money at these events;

·  Cobtree Young Farmers were paid to assist with car parking;

·  Reciprocal arrangements were in place with local businesses. For example a local brewery brewed their yearly hop harvest;

·  Scout Troops and St John’s Ambulance helped out on the day; and

·  At peak season in the summer the number of staff employed at Kent Life increased from 20 to 50, providing a source of local employment.

Natalie Kirk observed that Maidstone Borough Council’s commercial events had sometimes competed with Kent Life’s. For example, Maidstone Borough Council held a Peppa Pig event on Mote Park in summer 2013. Kent Life had held a similar event during a similar period. Emily Hirons indicated that greater co-ordination between events organisers, to prevent competing events being held, would be helpful.

Emily Hirons considered who valued the events run by Kent Life and gave the following examples:

·  Members of Kent Life valued the events as they gained free entry.

·  Different audiences valued different events. For example, Senior citizens groups valued the ‘Christmas on the Home Front’ event. Around 10 coach loads of senior citizens attend, mainly from the East End of London.

·  Volunteers valued the events. For example, Kent Life had a retired Hop Stringer who volunteered to string the hops in their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 87.

Interview with Natalie Price, General Manager of the Hazlitt Arts Centre.

Natalie Price, General Manager of the Hazlitt Arts Centre was invited to speak on item 9: Events Review - The Hazlitt Arts Centre.

Natalie Price informed the committee that the management of the Hazlitt Arts Centre was taken over by Parkwood Leisure on the 1^st October 2013. Once Parkwood Leisure started running the Hazlitt, Natalie Price established a Hazlitt User Group for organisations that used the Hazlitt Arts Centre. Not all Hazlitt users had chosen to get involved in this group, however.

Natalie Price explained to the committee that there were some initial problems with changes in procedures, for example around ticket sales. However, Natalie Price reassured the committee that she had sought one to one meetings with those users with concerns and subsequently taken steps to address the issues raised.

In response to a question from the committee, Natalie Price conveyed to the committee that there had been an increase in the amount of groups that used the Hazlitt. Examples included:

·  A new youth theatre group;

·  A yoga group;

·  A choir;

·  A writer’s group;

·  A dance group; and

·  A craft group.

Natalie Price summarised events that the Hazlitt were organising over the following few months. These included:

·  A collaboration with the Museum to show some of the collections in unusual places around the town. This would happen in collaboration with the youth theatre;

·  An A-Z of Englishness event for St George’s Day, which will be held in collaboration with the Town Team;

·  Proms in the Park; and

·  The youth theatre’s summer festival.

A member of the committee asked Natalie Price whether there had been any changes around ticket sales or increases in charges for the use of the Hazlitt Arts Centre since Parkwood had taken over. Natalie Price responded by conveying to the committee that there had not been any increase in charges, however there had been some changes to the way tickets were sold. The reason for this was that there needed to be greater transparency in the ticket selling process due to the new management contract. The contract stipulated that the council will get a profit share after a certain number of ticket sales; therefore it needed to be clear how many tickets had been sold. Additionally, the new ticket sales process would allow the Hazlitt to gather more marketing information in order to reach target markets better.

Natalie Price explained the new arrangements for selling tickets at the Hazlitt. The new arrangement was that the Hazlitt would sell all the tickets, with the Hazlitt keeping 10% commission, and would charge users £25 to print the tickets. However following consultation with users of the Hazlitt, the commission had been reduced to 5% and the tickets would be printed for free. The Hazlitt had also offered free publicity to users selling tickets through the Theatre.

After hearing Natalie Price’s evidence, the committee were reassured that the new ticket selling arrangements were contributing to a more professional approach to running the Arts Centre. The committee were also reassured  ...  view the full minutes text for item 88.

Interview with Jennifer Hunt, Local Economy Project Officer, about Maidstone Town Team.

Jennifer Hunt, Local Economy Project Officer, was invited to speak on item 10: Events Review- Maidstone Town Team.

The committee considered a presentation from Jennifer Hunt about Maidstone Town Team; the key points of which are summarised below:

·  Maidstone applied to be a ‘Portas Pilot’ town, but did not receive funding;

·  The momentum from the bid was used to create the Maidstone Town Team;

·  Maidstone Town Team had two key sponsors- Town Centre Management and Maidstone Borough Council;

·  There were three subgroups within the town team that covered:

o  Marketing

o  Regeneration

o  Events

·  The Town Team had access to the following funds:

o  A £10,000 grant from the Department for Communities and Local Government

o  An initial £30,000 from Maidstone Borough Council underspend

o  A additional £40,000 from the Maidstone Borough Council underspend

o  £40,000 of Section 106 money from the Next development at Junction 7 of the M20

·  Most of this funding had already been allocated to projects via the various subgroups; and

·  Maidstone Town Team were unincorporated at the time, which had led to difficulties in obtaining insurance and entering into contracts. However it had been decided that the Town Team would become a Community Interest Company (CIC) which would operate at arm’s length from the council.

A member of the committee asked whether there was scope for other groups to join the Town Team CIC. In response to this, Jennifer Hunt stated that this was a possibility.

The committee enquired what the meaning of ‘Regeneration’ was in terms of the Town Team sub group. The committee questioned the value of spending money on regeneration when Maidstone town centre had performed strongly compared to other competing high streets. Jennifer Hunt explained that whilst Maidstone town centre had performed strongly; it was important to continuously improve the town centre in order to prevent stagnation and eventual decline. An example of a project undertaken by the Regeneration sub group was ‘Light Up Maidstone’; a project to light up the Town Hall using floodlights.

A member of the committee wanted to find out how, when putting on events, Jubilee Square can be viewed as a ‘containable area’ by the Police and the SAG. Jennifer Hunt responded to the committee that for events held by the Town Team this was not an issue. This was because the numbers of people involved in events were relatively low and events were generally held between 1030 and 1730 when access roads to Jubilee Square are restricted. However it is more of a problem if the council is holding events, for example the Christmas lights switch on event, as roads have to be closed due to the numbers of people attending in the event.

A member of the committee asked whether there were any plans to organise activities throughout the town, for example at County Square. Jennifer Hunt conveyed that the Town Team were looking at other locations to hold events as they are trying to develop footfall to other areas of the town.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 89.

The committee considered the future work programme.

Sam Bailey updated the committee that the following items would be coming to the 22 April 2014 meeting:

·  An update to the committee on the Enterprise Hub;

·  Cabinet Member of Economic and Commercial Development’s Review of the Year 2013/2014;

·  Economic and Commercial Development Overview and Scrutiny Committee Review of the Year 2013/2014;

·  Skills and Employability update; and

·  Draft Events Review.

Sam Bailey confirmed with the committee that the date for the visit to the Museum was scheduled for the 8^th April at 1300. The visit to the museum would be to view the collection ahead of the cabinet member decision on the museum’s collections policy that (due to be taken on 30^th May 2014).

RESOLVED: That the committee note the future work programme.

18:30 to 21:12