Arena aims to echo success of debut year.

European Culture Capital venue outperforms all predictions as it looks to a healthy future

LIVERPOOL ECHO ARENA CELEBRATES its first anniversary this week, having enjoyed a hugely successful inaugural year as the city's main venue for the European Capital of Culture throughout 2008.

The #164m arena and convention centre complex at the city's Albert Docks officially opened on January 12 last year when Ringo Starr returned to his hometown for a rare performance, marking the first of many landmark events for the venue.

"It was an amazing first year," says arena general manager Tim Banfield. "On every single level, 2008 was far better than our expectations. The feedback from promoters was fantastic and the calibre of events we had made it very special."

Banfield reports that the arena hosted 94 separate events in 2008, but with many of those taking place over more than one day, the arena was open for 141 event days in total, with 152 performances.

Banfield adds the highlights of the year included the MTV Europe Music Awards, the Summer Pops concerts in July, the World Firefighter Games and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards.

Recalling the meticulous planning ahead of the venue's launch, Banfield tells Music Week that, back in 2006, one of the things they had to do was prove that they had a market to sell to in Liverpool. He says, "Prior to last year I thought we'd hit maybe 350,000 visitors in the first year, but we exceeded 500,000, so we have more than achieved our aims - I could not have dreamt of having a better year. In saying that, we knew 2008 was going to be good because of the city's European Capital of Culture status, so in many ways 2009 is going to be a ...