Eurovision Song Contest 2023

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Eurovision Song Contest 2023

(17/04/2023 21:21)Barney Wrote:  This is possibly the biggest event that Liverpool city centre has witnessed since the Millennium Eve. There will be thousands of local people wishing to experience this but there will be no provision for them to get home afterwards. I would have thought that this would be a good opportunity to ascertain the demand for night buses operating from Liverpool One.

I have to point out that Eurovision is not the biggest event in Liverpool city centre since the Millennium. Nowhere near.

Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 seems to be the expectation across the Eurovision event. Of course, the overall attendance may exceed this but it will still pale in comparison with others. The Three Queens event in 2015 managed 1.3 million visitors and the three Giant Spectaculars had 1.5 million, 1 million plus and 800,000 people. The Liverpool F.C. trophy parades, large portions of which were in the city centre, saw approximately 1 million in 2005, 750,000 in 2019 and 500,000 in 2022. Outside the city centre, more than 150,000 regularly attend the 3-day Grand National meeting at Aintree in a relatively confined location, far in excess of the Eurovision predictions.

Of course, I would like to see night buses return to Liverpool but a one-off event like Eurovision is no gauge to potential demand. They are at least offering late trains on the Merseyrail network to all destinations except Ellesmere Port until around 0130.