IN YOUR
THE GUIDE TO HULL’S BIGGEST EVENTS Brought to you by hull city council
Q. What are you looking forward to most this summer? A. I always look forward to The
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Sesh and the Freedom Festival. I think they showcase Hull at its very best with everyone coming together. Hull this summer is going to be an upbeat, lively, exciting place. They will also help give a flavour of what we can expect not only in 2017, but in 2018, 2019 and beyond.
Jon Pywell Hull City Council
Q. Can everyone get involved? A. Yes. This is an opportunity
Jon Pywell is Hull City Council’s city centre and place manager and the man charged with reshaping Hull into a modern vibrant city for 2017 and beyond. As well as being instrumental in landing Hull the 2017 City of Culture title Jon is passionate about telling the world just how much the city has to offer.
Q. What has winning 2017 meant for Hull? A. The real prize has been the opportunity to move forward and create a vibrant future for Hull. I’m really excited about next year, it’s going to be amazing, but it’s also about making it work for us in the long term. It’s about leaving a legacy for Hull that lasts way beyond 2017. City of Culture offered us the chance to really accelerate the change that was always planned for Hull, but may have taken longer. What we are doing now is securing the future of the city.
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This £100m major capital programme is the biggest investment in the city centre there has ever been and although there will be some short-term disruption, we’ve got to remember that the long-term benefits will be huge. The investment into the public realm aims to increase city centre retail turnover by £70 million and create 500 new jobs in the retail and tourism sectors over the next 10 years.
Q. Where are we with the urban renewal programme in the city centre? A. City centres are always evolving
and in constant change. Someone said that one sign of a successful city is the sight of cranes on the skyline. I’d add that roads and streets being improved is another sign as we make these major changes that will benefit the city for decades to come. What we will have at the end of the process is a modern city centre that will be able to hold its head up and compete very favourably with other destination cities close to us.
Q. Is Hull still open for business while the work is on-going? A. Undoubtedly yes. Hull is very
much open for business. The huge number of festivals and events we have happening in Hull city centre this summer is a testament to that. As we build up to 2017 there is going to be even more for people to experience in Hull and it’s all pretty fantastic, world-class stuff. We may be having to hold some events in different places to where we normally would, but that’s good because it allows us to try out different areas in the run up to 2017 and make the city centre work even harder.
for everybody; whether that’s by coming along to one of the big events, volunteering for City of Culture or just seeing the massive improvements we’re making in the city centre, then this is about everyone in Hull.
Catherine Goble
Marketing & Events Coordinator for Hull Buisness Improvement District
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Despite all the work that’s going on, businesses are still very much open for business in Hull. We have some brilliant shops in Hull city centre – both independent traders and big departments stores – that would love your support right now. So don’t wait until 2017 to come and discover them for yourself. We’ve got plenty of events going on across the city centre this year as we gear up for 2017 and get ready for when the eyes of the world are on Hull. It would be great for the people of Hull to come down and show their support. To visit the shops, have a bite to eat in the restaurants, visit a museum and maybe take in an event. Make a day of it.
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MARTIN GREEN
Chief executive of Hull 2017 There is always a great offering of events in Hull and 2016 is no different. From Pride to The Sesh to the Freedom Festival these are events that continue to go from strength to strength and that the people of Hull have truly embraced.What’s different this year are the added elements that we are introducing as we build up momentum to 2017. There are exciting events coming such as the Amy Johnson Festival, HU1 Festival and Place des Anges outdoor spectacular, which we have funded, that not only will serve as a great launch for Amy Johnson but also as a finale for the Yorkshire Festival. The new events will allow us to warm up and test out our plans for next year while also giving people a small flavour of what we can look forward to. The city may be undergoing some cosmetic surgery at the moment but Hull still has some amazing experiences to look forward to this year with a programme that celebrates the diversity of Hull while bringing a few surprises too. We’ve always said that culture should be for everyone and with this year’s offering absolutely proves that. From Hull Pride to the Heritage Open Day,there is something for everyone to enjoy.
Mikey Martins
Artistic director of the Freedom Festival “We’re gearing up for a phenomenal summer, not only with the festival itself in September, but with the opening of Stage @The Dock, our open air performance space in the Fruit Market which will host its first events this summer. “Our programme this year – which features international acts, celebrated UK and local talent alongside newly-commissioned work – will transform some city centre locations that we’ve not used before. There are so many incredible events happening here this summer; it’s a hugely exciting time.”
MARK PAGE
Founder of the Humber Street Sesh The Humber Street Sesh Festival is very much ON this August, despite all the ongoing development on the Marina. Due to take place on Saturday, August 6, our fifth festival is expecting another huge turnout of 32,000, and over the past six months, we’ve been working very closely with the developers, Wykeland Beal and Hull City Council to ensure we can stage another magical day for the city. We’ve had to adapt our ambitious Festival plans along the way, but we’re confident that the festival can work around this ongoing work. We’re extremely excited to see how this cultural quarter will develop in time for our year in the national spotlight during 2017, and hope that those who have invested their time and talent in the area will be rewarded in years to come.
A world of exciting opportunities AwAits you... whAt will you discover in 2017? Let’s explore together: hull2017.co.uk/discover
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HU1 Festival
May 28 and 29 Zebedee’s Yard, Hull city centre
A family friendly dance music festival with a Caribbean twist. Saturday is family day and Sunday is for over-18 dance music lovers. The first big festival of the summer will be showing Hull City’s date with destiny at Wembley on Saturday afternoon on a big screen. Then it’s big name DJs such as Fuse ODG, East Everything and Doorly all the way. Visit www.hullboxoffice.co.uk
Place des Anges
Saturday, July 2 Queens gardens
An angelic host will take to the skies above Queens Gardens for this aerial spectacular which will feature acrobats from French theatre group Gratte Ciel performing alongside giant inflatable cherubs. Tickets are free but you need to register to get them. Visit: www.hull2017.co.uk/placedesanges
Pride in Hull Lord Mayors Gala
Saturday, June 11 Queens Gardens A ceremonial highlight of the year as the Lord Mayor invites you to join in on the Family Fun Day in Queens Gardens with many activities including craft workshops, music and dance and much more. Visit www.hullcc.gov.uk
Hull Film Festival From June 29 to July 4 Hull Truck
Featuring a heady mix of cinematic masterpieces, classic movies and exciting new art house flicks, Hull Film Festival will have something to please every silver screen fan. Visit www.hullindependentcinema.com
Saturday, July 16 Baker Street, Hull
Hull’s annual celebration of East Yorkshire’s LGBT community is always a colourful, familyfriendly affair with music, food, drink, laughs and performances to keep you entertained all day. Visit www.prideinhull.co.uk
Hull Folk and Maritime Festival
July 15 to 17 Hull Marina and Old Town
With more than 70 live acts, singarounds, folk dancing displays, historic boats and The Minerva Real Ale Festival taking place during the threeday festival, the reborn Hull Folk Festival is going from strength to strength. Visit www.hullfolkandmaritimefestival.com
Yum! Food Festival
July 22 and 23 Rosebowl, QueenS Gardens, Hull Tuck in to a smorgasbord of fantastic foodie events including celebrity cooking demonstrations, food stalls and live music. Visit www.yumfestival.co.uk
THE Amy Johnson Festival From July 1 to September 6 Zebedee’s Yard and city wide
The first event celebrating Hull’s own circumnavigating aviation heroine Amy Johnson takes off in July, featuring city-wide photography exhibitions, giant colourful moths and the arrival of Leonardo da Vinci’s genius flying machines. Visit www.amyjohnsonfestival.co.uk
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Hull Jazz Festival
July 21 to 24 various venues, Hull city centre
With Yolanda Brown, Minima and the James Taylor Quartet all set to perform, this annual jazz festival is bringing the best in jazz, funk, soul and reggae to Hull. Visit www.jnight.org
An army of 2017 volunteers are set to welcome thousands to Hull this summer as they get in the swing for their City of Culture work. Hull teacher Mark Roper, 60, is a pioneer volunteer for 2017 and a real evangelist for Hull. In a way City Of Culture has brought forward my retirement,” says Mark, who has been a teacher in Hull for 37 years and will be volunteering at Freedom, the Amy Johnson Festival and Hull Folk Festival this summer.“I was going to retire the year after, but I brought it forward a year so I could get as involved with the culture as much as possible. I want to experience as much of it as I can.“My last day as a teacher is on July 8 and on July 9 I’m stripping naked for Spencer Tunick. I’m planning on growing old disgracefully!
Humber Street Sesh Saturday, August 6 Humber Street, Hull Marina Here comes a summer packed full of events in Hull...
The festival by the people of Hull for the people of Hull. 170 bands across 12 stages in a one daylong celebration of everything Hull and music. Find a favourite new band, join in the silent disco, skate park, art works, photography exhibition and food and drink stalls. Visit www.facebook.com/HumberStreetSesh
Freedom Festival
September 2 to 4, Hull city centre and Fruit Market
The big one. Hull’s flagship festival is in its fifth year and is getting bigger and better. A real cultural melting pot of music, comedy, performance art, street theatre and epic spectacle. This year it’s the calling card for what’s in store in 2017. You’d be mad to miss it. Visit www.freedomfestival.co.uk
Heritage Open days National Play Day
Wednesday, August 3 11am - 3pm Queens Gardens, Hull
Play Day’s concept is to encourage play not only for children but all family members and the wider family group to join in the play activities and to take the experience home and keep play alive. This year the theme is based on Roald Dhal. Visit www.playday.org.uk
“One of reasons I got involved was because a lot of people have an opinion of Hull being a horrible place – although most of them have never actually been here. When they do come here they are pleasantly surprised. It is actually a superb place to be and I want as many people as possible to know that. “I would say to everyone to get involved, to take a chance and try something you’ve never done before. You never know, you might discover you love opera or modern dance or rock gig. How will you know unless you actually try it?”
For more info visit: hull2017.co.uk/volunteer
September 8 to 11 various venue city-wide.
Take a peek behind the scenes of some of Hull’s most historic locations – from the corridors of power to the lost hidden gems of the city’s illustrious past. Visit www.heritageopendays.org.uk
What’s on at Hull’s Museums? Hull’s museums and libraries are free and open throughout the summer period. Highlights include AniMotion at the Maritime Museum, where you can get your hands-on and create your own animations at ‘Animation Stations’ developed by the world famous Aardman Studios (the makers of Morph, Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep). The Hull and East Riding Museum will host an archaeology festival where you can experience the sights and sounds of the Roman marketplace and the Streetlife Museum hosts the annual Big Bus day, a family friendly event with buses new and old, activities for children food and drink stalls and much more. For more information on Hull museums and libraries’ full summer programme visit: www.hcandl.co.uk
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I’m looking forward to The Sesh and Freedom Festival taking over the Marina again. “We always look forward to those, they’re such great additions to the area. They’re hard work because we’re always flat out but it’s great that the people of Hull always turn out in such big numbers. “We’ve been trading here for four years now – we started out as a pop up café and have been in these premises for two years – and the people of Hull have really taken us to their hearts and supported us. It’s a great place to be. We’ve never tried to be cool, it just is what it is and I think people like that. The building’s got soul. Steve Hubbard
Dutch Sailing Ships
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19-21/6/2016 Hull Marina
40 large yachts will sail into Hull Marina for a whistle-stop visit to the city June 19 to 21. Their visit is part of a 335 nautical mile round trip from Holland to Hull – Hartlepool and back home to Holland. As part of their stay the group of 120 Dutch visitors will meet with visitors to the Marina before setting sail again
STEVE HUBBARD
Hull KR legend who now helps run cool café Thieving Harry’s, in Humber Street
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These are some of the exciting new businesses
Businesses
creating a stronger local economy as Hull faces a bright new future
Chris Eastaugh
Frances Beasley
Owner of Larkins and the upcoming Butler Whites in Humber Street “We’ve been trying to get Butler Whites off the ground for about three years now – we’ve invested everything in to it. The Marina area won’t be anything like it was 15 or 20 years ago, but there is a brilliant vibe during the day. “I tend to visit out of town areas such as Leeds and Manchester, so I want to bring something just as good to Hull.
“We are looking forward to having public spaces as attractive as the buildings in the area. “We are also looking forward to the events in Queens Gardens and hope it will improve business and get people to that end of the city. We need to be more of an attraction to city visitors. We have an ambition to provide an outdoor space for food and drinks
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in Hepworth Arcade
The Marina is lovely and you can easily spend a day there, what with The Deep as well, so we’re really positive about the improvements currently being done for the future. “We are due this renovation and we deserve it as a city. It is easy for people to fall into a trap of negativity, but we are finally getting these improvements the city deserves.”
“I feel that with all that’s been going on people are very positive. People seem very excited. There hasn’t been much of a decline, just after Christmas there was a drop, but then again it is just after Christmas. “The city improvements are very much a needed thing and I’m very excited to see the outcome.”
Malcolm Scott
Joe Martin
Owner Kardomah 94
Caffeinated in Trinity Market
once the improvements are near completion, which we hope will add something extra to the venue. “It is inevitable that these works would disrupt businesses, but it is great, and important, to have feedback from people in order to improve our city.
“It’s not easy as an independent business in Hull, but my business is very, very small. It’s just me that has to turn up, so I don’t have any large infrastructure of staff to pay for. “We have to as independent owners, set ourselves aside from the big chains and appeal to people in a different way.
But when UK City of Culture comes by in 2017 I’ll make sure I make the most of it.”
Jon Collins Trinity Market, Cocoa Chocolatier “The works are going to make the city look fantastic. They will hopefully bring people from one side of the city to do the other. What’s been done so far looks really good and it seems to be moving in a positive way. It takes time and you’ve got to take things away before you can build. Business-wise the works are having
a huge impact on all businesses, which we knew it would, but it’s one of those necessary evils. You can’t move forwards without all this happening. I’d like to be city centre-based after the improvements and stay in the area. It would be great to still have a Trinity Market base as well as another business in the city.”
Gillian Long Of Cock Of The Walk bespoke tailors in Grimston Street
“As a bespoke, luxury business, we have people visiting from all over the country. We are hoping that the improvements will attract more people to the city and get them to stay for longer, which will benefit other businesses. “These improvements are something that need to happen.”
A word from Hull’s Shopping Centres
JIM HARRIS
Claire Suggitt
LEE APPLETON
Jim Harris, centre manager for St Stephen’s shopping centre, says Hull’s “phoenix is rising from the ashes” and is on course to be reborn as an exciting 21st Century city. He said: “I think there is always no gain without pain but we are getting there. I think by August we will have a fantastic city centre that will be the envy of our peer cities. Compared to what we had six or seven months ago there is already a massive change. I think it’s really important that people come and support the city centre. In fact, now is the ideal time to come and find lots of bargains because next year we’re expecting to be busy, busy, busy with an extra 1.2m visitors a month. “There’s so much going on in Hull this summer starting with the HU1 festival, then Yum! food festival and Sesh and Freedom, it really is going to be a vibrant place.” www.ststephens-hull.com
We have been working on plans to introduce a new outlet development at the centre, which will be the first of its kind in the country, will offer visitors a new and exciting retail and leisure experience as Hull heads into its year in the spotlight in 2017. Although the recent city centre work has caused some disruption for shoppers, we believe the outcome will be worth it and are looking forward to it being completed. We’ve been developing partnerships with our retailers, local community groups and businesses in generating a fun filled calendar of events and fantastic offerings during the summer months at Princes Quay, this includes a free play and craft campaign called PQ Play Days that runs over the entire summer on the Harbour Deck. All event information can be found via www.princes-quay.co.uk
Lee Appleton, centre manager at Prospect Centre, said: “Hull is a city on the move - it is quickly strengthening its position as the retail, leisure and business capital of the east coast. The likes of HU1 Festival, Amy Johnson Festival and Yum! Food Festival, as well as Prospect Centre’s own action packed summer events calendar, delivers an important message that Hull is very much still open for business while development works continue to transform the city-centre into a vibrant, cultural destination. “These are exciting times for Hull and it’s encouraging to see a genuine team effort from city-centre businesses, with everyone working towards the same goal. “I am confident that the buzz of activities throughout the summer will create a perfect platform ahead of our imminent UK City of Culture status.” www.prospectshoppingcentre.co.uk
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FOR YOUR DIARY HU1 Festival
May 28 & 29 Zebedee’s Yard, Hull city centre
Lord Mayor’s Gala JUNE 11 Queens Gardens
Laugh out Loud Comedy night JUNE 15 & 17 Hull City Hall
EDUCATING RITA
JUNE 16 - JULY 9 Hull TRUCK THEATRE
Dutch Sailing Visit JUNE 19-21 Hull Marina
Hull Film Festival JUNE 29 – July 4
Hull Truck
Amy Johnson Festival
JULY 1 - SEPT 6 Various venues/City wide
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Place des Anges
Rachel Buffey, was one of the first people to sign up to take part in City Of Culture. This summer Rachel, who is studying history of art at the University of Hull, will be volunteering at some of the biggest events taking place in the city centre, including the amazing Place des Anges aerial spectacular in Queens Gardens and September’s Freedom Festival. “I wanted to be involved right from the start,” she says. “As soon as I saw 2017 was hosting the Turner Prize in 2017 I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to get involved and experience art and culture for myself – and now we’re building up to 2017 and already have a fantastic summer of events to look forward to I’m starting to get really excited. “Although I am studying for an art degree, this is a real chance to actually experience art and culture and to see it firsthand rather than just read about it in a book. “There are so many great events happening in Hull this summer and I would really urge people to go along and see them for themselves. It really is the chance to see something that you haven’t seen before and may never see again in Hull. It’s the chance of a lifetime.
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JULY 2 Queens gardens/Hull City Centre
Pride in Hull
JULY 16 Baker Street
Folk festival
JULY 15-17 Hull city Centre
HULL JAZZ FESTIVAL
JULY 21 -24 VARIOUS VENUES/Hull city Centre
Yum festival
JULY 22-23 Hull city Centre
National Play day
AUGUST 3 Queens Gardens
The Sesh
AUGUST 6 Humber Street
Freedom Festival SEPTEMBER 2-4
Hull City Centre
Heritage Open days
SEPTEMBER 8-11 Various venues/City wide *at the time of going to print the listings were correct but maybe subject to change
Rachel Buffey Hull 2017 volunteer 27, of east Hull
@DestinationHull @2017Hull @HumberStSesh @FreedomFestHull
it’s Almost time to get the pArty stArted. Are you reAdy for hull 2017? hull2017.co.uk