Stakeholder involvement

In LIÈGE, the establishment of a Night Council was based on the information held by the various communal departments (police, complaints to the Mayor). Reaching a precise diagnosis is now a priority action.

In MANNHEIM, the audit phase allowed to clarify the issues and demands of the nightlife stakeholders through participatory schemes as mentioned above, or through personal observation or other sources.

Credit Daniel Lucak

Banks of the River Rhine, Mannheim, nightview

• Strategy development

The city must position itself as representing the public interest. It must design a global political vision and anticipate the future of its local nightlife. The scope of the project is determined according to these parameters. The city must then first define a strategy on which it can mobilise its partners.

PARIS promotes a fair balance between the various ways night is ‘used’, the attractiveness and diversity of Parisian nights, and accessibility for all. This vision has four axes: development, promotion, regulation and participation. This strategy was formalised with the participation of the relevant stakeholders in the Paris manifesto on nightlife.

BORDEAUX has traditionally promoted policies based on balance, dialogue and moderation. Acculturation and adherence to the project are based on balanced work axes. Today, the guiding principle is summarised by the concept of ‘peaceful nights’, which speaks about the necessary sharing of the night.

NANTES also promotes the balance between the city that sleeps, the city that plays, and the city that works, but also the ‘invisible’ city populated by vulnerable people. The challenge is to strengthen this strategy through consensus and to find the exact words so that everybody agrees on a text. This is a phase where words are important: sleep is more than a ‘right’, it’s a ‘need’, etc. It is necessary to explain to the partners to what extent they can have an influence, and who decides in the end. In practice, depending on the subject matter and the partners, one can follow an approach based on dialogue, co-conception, co-construction, co-decision making, common implementation, or delegation, etc. In fact, the approach must be flexible and adapted to each particular project or action.

In ZURICH, the objective is mainly the economic and cultural development of the night-time offer, with effect on other cross-cutting aspects. The stakeholders are focusing on priorities such as coexistence, the promotion of nightlife, the diversification of cultural activities and on prevention and risk reduction activities. There is no official nightlife strategy document because there is no single strategy. The most interesting or innovative practices are mentioned by politicians and networks when they talk to the public or the media.

In MANNHEIM, based on the demands collected through participatory formats, the Night Mayor drafts an initial concept about the issue at hand, in coordination with urban cultural development, and defines the various interest groups (stakeholders).

• Development of the action plan

The action plan is developed by thematic working groups on the basis of principles defined by the city during the first diagnosis.

In PARIS, draft versions of the action sheets were discussed in the working groups. Two meetings for each thematic working group, i.e. 2 meetings multiplied by 7 groups were necessary to design the action plan. The programme manager ensured global consistency based on the fact that some actions touched several themes, such as the training of professionals, awareness on the different uses, mobility, etc. In the end, 37 actions were validated by the steering committee.

In BORDEAUX, several recommendations resulted from the Bordeaux at night diagnosis, as well as from the project’s capacity to initiate new actions based on emerging phenomena, and as a response to the Covid crisis (the end of lockdown of Bordeaux at night). Thematic committees are in charge of design and implementation.

In NANTES, the action plan foresees 12 main actions resulting from the diagnosis of Nantes’ nightlife, which must be validated by Council members. Most of these actions are discussed with the Council. As such, as the action plan progresses, it is enriched with the stakeholders’ proposals.

In LIÈGE, an action plan drafted by a thematic working group has been submitted for approval to the Night Council. A number of targeted actions have already been carried out in the le Carré neighbourhood. Local regulations ban alcohol consumption in the streets and the sale of alcohol in retail shops on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and on the eve of bank holidays. In order to make these regulations known to the public, the prevention plan has included for the past 5 years meetings with college students in Liège. Other actions put in place were the resurfacing of cobbled streets, an increase in public waste bins, and sign posts warning against incivilities.