We have got the balance just about right
YES SAYS Bill Heckle of Cavern City Tours BACK in 1995, Steve McRiskin was studying for a masters degree in music tourism in America and he came to Liverpool to help Cavern City Tours. It was a time when everyone was saying: "What would America have done with The Beatles?" He travelled to the States to visit every major musical destination and met all the major movers and shakers over there. He was trying to help the Cavern Club and find out what we could do better, but he came back and told us something none of us ever thought he would say. Liverpool was far more integrated and developed in terms of marketing the product than anywhere else he visited and yet it was not over-commercialised and corporate with big names trying to make money. We had got the balance just right. After John Lennon's death in 1980, everyone jumped on the bandwagon and thought that The Beatles were a passport to making millions of pounds. But they quickly realised that you can't just put the band's name to any old product and expect it to sell. There were a lot of investments and projects that just didn't work. The year 1984 was a big one for Liverpool, almost as big as Capital of Culture, because it is another example of a time when the city was trying to reinvent itself. The Beatles museum opened, supported by Radio City, work was started on the Cavern Mecca and the Cavern Walks and Royal Insurance rebuilt The Cavern Club, 50% of which was on its original site. But mostly, it all failed. Only chippings of the projects survived. The Beatles Shop and Cavern City Tours were the only things left. The reason for that was because we were in the mid-eighties. No one was interested in The Beatles, we were in the middle of a punk revolution. Kids were reacting against everything. The Beatles were not as big as they are now. I remember reading an editorial in NME Magazine when The Beatles split and it said we wouldn't know if they really would go down in history unless they were still famous in three years. Well, 35 years down the line, there is more interest in them than ever before. We have been excellent in marketing for The Beatles fanatics; those people who can tell you the tracks on every album. But we haven't been able to reach the general public, who are just interested. People come to Liverpool to visit Beatles tourist attractions from 40 different countries and we don't have the resources to market in 40 different countries. Certainly Capital of Culture and a major marketing drive that is taking place as part of a new committee MBIG - Music and Beatles Industry Group - will help fill those marketing gaps. Tomorrow is the first day of International Beatle Week 2005. The Beatles have endorsed this event and we are expecting a record number of people. If that isn't doing it properly, then I don't know what is. NEXT NO: The case against >>> | 
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