The Hull Freedom Festival with stars like Peter Andre and Pixie Lott, and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race with the UK being represented by the yacht “Hull & Humber”, have put Hull on the international map and created unprecedented local pride amongst Hull and East Yorkshire folk. The atmosphere in the city centre was tangible it could almost be felt, touched and tasted!
Humberside Police estimated that up to 150,000 people attended Hull City Centre events during the last weekend of 12th and 13th September 2009. I have never seen so many people in Hull City Centre! But it was not just Hull, but crowds gathered at Paull, Aldborough and Cleethorpes to follow the start of the Clipper Race.
There may be serious issues associated with the staging of the event to debate in the future – but for now lets celebrate!
Other information:
The 35,000 mile Clipper Race can be followed via the official website below; the race takes 10 months to complete and ends in Hull in July 2010
Clipper Round the World Yacht Race website – Scroll down the Home page and follow the boats by GPS every 3 hours on the RaceViewer.
The local newspapers have been full of stories and pictures from the festival.
Catch up with Twitter News about the event at the Twitter Search Engine: Twendz
Apparantly the weekend, staged across September 11-13, generated £9.3m for the local economy, benefiting bars, shops, restaurants and hotels.
The Freedom Festival has now been confirmed as an annual event, taking place in early September, and an additional celebration will be organised for the return of the fleet of Clipper yachts on July 17 2010.