Birmingham Light Festival: PR Brief

PR Brief

We are looking for a Birmingham-based PR agency to work with us on spreading the world about a new hero event for the city.

What is Birmingham Light Festival?

Birmingham Light Festival will be an annual multi-day event that will bring the city-centre to life at night through transforming Birmingham’s city core into an extraordinary gallery of illuminated artworks. 

Taking place from 19 February – 22 February in order to generate a footfall and trading boost for businesses in the challenging post-Christmas winter months. 

Birmingham Light Festival will encourage local people to explore and experience their city in a different light, we are also seeking to attract attract tourists to the city. We anticipate regional tourism being most realistic for year one but we would also like to lay the ground work for encouraging wider domestic tourism (which will be a focus as the festival grows and develops).

If you’re not familiar with Light Festivals then you can get an idea of what an installation might look like here, this was our test installation delivered earlier this year to gauge the city’s appetite for light art: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MG8DPF2QLV08D_6ZrutFrde9Ob4AxkWh/view?usp=share_link

You can also take a look at River of Light (Liverpool), Bristol Light Festival and for the UK’s best in class – Lumiere (Durham). 

We are anticipating having 8 – 10 artworks on display across the city centre. 3 of these will be permanent commissions staying in situ after the festival. The remainder will be temporary interventions.

There will also be an accompanying programme of events and activities (e.g Silent Disco / Light Art 5K, Candle Lit Dinners – all playing on the theme of light).

Key Principles

These are the principles that guide our work:

PLACE: We will connect audiences with the city in a positive, creative and playful way through light art that makes connections with Birmingham; it’s heritage, it’s USPs and it’s people 

ECONOMIC: A festival designed to encourage curiosity and creativity but with driving footfall and increasing spend in local businesses at the heart of the proposition 

COLLABORATIVE: A festival with collaboration at it’s heart, with City Centre BIDS uniting alongside both private and public partners to deliver an event type that, ordinarily (in other cities), city council body’s would support or deliver 

ACTIVE: Artworks will all be within walking distance of one another, showcasing Birmingham as a walkable city and encouraging visitors to actively explore the city-centre 

SOCIAL: Some artworks will be participatory, encouraging social experience – enhancing community cohesion and human connection 

SAFE: We will use the first year of the festival to explore how we can improve perceptions of safety through light 

INCLUSIVE: Light art is accessible to all and resonates with a wider audience, and in taking this art to the streets of city centre we remove many of the barriers that exist with traditional art forms 

SUSTAINABLE: Working in an environmentally sustainable way across all areas of the festival, including using sustainability as a criteria for commissions 

LEGACY: Each year we will aim to work with partners to ensure that one of the light art commissions remains in place as a longer-term installation, brightening and enhancing city spaces more permanently over time 

What are our Communication Goals?

1. Establish Birmingham Light Festival as a new hero event for the city
2. Maximise awareness of the festival with a focus on local and regional audiences
3. Begin to engage national press – selling in a positive story of Birmingham as a creative city
4. Achieve our target visitor number goal (we are happy to discuss in person)
5. Grow e-news subscribers in readiness for future festival re-targetting

What are we looking for?

Planning

We have target audiences, tone of voice, brand personality and key comms milestones already in mind but as a first point of call we want to work with an agency to sense check our assumptions and flesh out this work. We visualise this being a half day planning workshop resulting in the creation of a simple delivery plan to guide communications for the 2024 Festival.

Delivery

The main support we need is in the delivery of this plan, with the following in scope:

• Press releases (we anticipate the need for 2 key releases but will take advice on this)
• Media relations & outreach across local / regional and national press
• Media coordination in the run up to and during the festival (e.g managing interviews or press visits)
• Influencer engagement 

In addition – 

We will be delivering a preview night for press & stakeholders. Whilst the in-house team will event manage this we are looking for an agency who can manage the press invites and have a presence on the night, meeting and greeting key contacts.

Whilst social media is not in scope, and will be delivered in-house by the team, we do want to think about communications holistically.

We are excited to work with an agency with a breadth of expertise but would like one key contact point (Account Manager) throughout the process as we will need to work at pace.

Reporting

We will need to report on the impact of the festival and we will need you to monitor and report on press coverage, press circulation / reach statistics.

Timeline

Interviews: 5 November

Agency appointed: 7 November

Comms Plan finalised: 28 November

Light Festival: 19 February – 22 February

Post-event updates: 19 Feb – 31 March

Budget

£5,000

Join us?

To apply please submit your proposal & quote by 9am on 25 October. Please be sure to share case studies of similar work as part of of your proposal. We are particularly interested in hearing from agencies with a track record in delivering PR for major events.

Email: Alex – alex.nicholson-evans@colmorebid.co.uk.