Was Belfast 2024 a 'game-changer' for the arts?

There are questions over whether a £6m Belfast festival was the "game-changer" for the arts that had been hoped for, an Alliance Party councillor has said.

Alliance group leader on Belfast City Council, Michael Long, said "there was very little awareness" of what Belfast 2024 was.

Belfast 2024 was meant to be a year-long "creative celebration" for the city, linking a number of shows and events.

In a statement to BBC News NI, Belfast City Council said that "the vast majority of events within the programme were sold out or nearing full capacity".

Events held as part of Belfast 2024 included the visit of Little Amal, a 12ft (3.7m) puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee.

Long said there had been "some fantastic events".

"But I think the problem more is not necessarily to do with the actual content of the events, it was really to do with whether people knew anything about Belfast 2024," he said.

"People in the city weren't necessarily as aware of the issues as they maybe should have been.

"Even now at the end of the year, I think there was very little awareness of what it was.

"Was it actually the game-changer we had hoped in terms of the arts in Belfast?

"Have arts groups felt that it was actually something that was worthwhile given the investment that was made?"

Artists who took part in the Belfast 2024 programme told BBC News NI that it had made an impact.

Kwame Daniels was the creative director of North Star, a large-scale music show commemorating Belfast's opposition to the slave trade.

"That just wouldn't have been possible without the trust, the support of Belfast 2024," he told BBC News NI, adding that international guests flew in to see the show.

"As a result of that now there are talks of taking North Star possibly to New York, to Colombia," he said.

"We worked with over 100 pupils across four schools, creative writing workshops really interrogating their feelings of the city and home.

"They then performed on stage. In terms of legacy it's huge.

"That year, I believe, really made it cool to be in Belfast. The impact of that you might not feel for four or five years."

Becky Bellamy is one of those behind The Show Some Love Green House in the city centre - an arts, activism and events space.

They told BBC News NI that Belfast 2024 had part-funded the project.

"Belfast 2024 took a risk on us, took a gamble on us, which I think we have more than paid back in terms the impact that we've been able to deliver with the space," they said.

"The most consistent thing that we would get said whenever people would walk in is 'Wow, we can't believe that there's a place like this in Belfast.'

"We're the most chronically underfunded country in terms of the arts and Belfast 2024 was able to provide funding to the arts.

"They were able to empower people to think bigger and do something different."

But Bellamy said that there were some frustrations with how Belfast 2024 was communicated.

"The marketing that was delivered to be able to share all of the components of the programme and the centralised programme itself was not up to scratch," they said.

"It was not reflective of how communications happen in the modern world."

Long said the council would carry out an evaluation of Belfast 2024 which would address a number of questions.

"Was there enough marketing around the particular project?" he said.

"Did it attract the number of visitors they were actually wanted?"

In a statement to BBC News NI, Belfast City Council said about 60,000 people had attended or taken part in almost 1,000 events or activities as part of Belfast 2024.

It said the "vast majority of events within the programme were sold out or nearing full capacity".

"Over 1,000 contracts were delivered with Belfast artists, production staff, facilitators and designers and more than 200 partnerships and community collaborations were forged," the statement continued," a spokesperson added."

"Evaluation of the programme is ongoing and will help identify any learning for future programmes."

They also said while Belfast City Council had agreed a budget of £5.9m for Belfast 2024, "a further £460,000 was raised towards the programme from partners, including £250,000 from National Lottery Heritage Fund, £110,000 from the British Council and £100,000 from other councils towards wider Little Amal programme."