Sunderland City Council is launching an ambitious new approach to the way events are delivered in the city.

The council is setting up a new events management company to deliver the council’s events programme, including the Sunderland International Airshow and to develop new events for the city.

Sunderland Live will operate as a local authority company and this new arrangement will free it up to explore a wider range of options for bringing in outside funding, including commercial sponsorship, than it could do within the council.
The move will ensure the continued development of the events programme at the same time as reducing costs to the city council.
Sunderland's events programme has scored consistently high levels of public satisfaction. The creation of the events management company is designed to ensure more things for people to see, do and take part in, at the same time as helping raise Sunderland's profile.

Council Leader, Cllr Paul Watson, said: "This new approach will help us build on the city's emerging national reputation for events which we're developing through new partnership working, at the same time as saving the council money.
"We very much recognise the importance of the events programme to people in this city and the contribution it makes to the local economy.
"We also recognised early on the need to protect the events programme from budgetary pressures which could put it at risk in the future. That is why we have gone down the route of creating a local authority company as a way of maintaining the existing events programme while reducing the ongoing costs to the council. This will help us support the local economy by attracting visitors to an increased number of targeted events in the city."

Steve Cram, Director of DS Media & Events, one of the co-founders of the Marathon of the North, commented: “Sunderland already has an excellent and growing reputation for events, so the launch of Sunderland Live is very good news for the city and the wider region. This innovative move to protect and grow the city’s event programme is particularly welcome at a time when public finances are increasingly under pressure.”

The existing events team will transfer to the new company when it begins trading on 1 April.