Many discussions followed between city stakeholders including Salisbury City Council, Wiltshire Council, Salisbury BID and Salisbury Chamber of Commerce, with regards to the viability of arranging such a large-scale event at short notice.
As representatives of the businesses, Salisbury BID consulted their members and following feedback the idea was not welcomed from the majority of licensed premises.
Many have already invested in display equipment, supplies and staff for the World Cup, therefore a public screening would directly impact their investment and potential income.
Although other business sectors were in favour, it would not affect their business directly.
Whilst it is appreciated that it may have been a good community-spirited event, there were many uncertainties and risks to be answered in a short space of time when a lot of the city’s resource are already prioritised to the incident.
Concerns from Wiltshire Police were also raised as to how to safely resource this event and as we know our Police force are already operating at full capacity due to the on-going major incident in Salisbury and Amesbury.
The significant costs also needed to be considered to make this a successful event for the city, such as safety and security along with the operational costs and resources.
Therefore, due to these factors, the city stakeholders have agreed that on this occasion a big screen would not be viable.
However, in light of the public desire, Salisbury City Council have agreed to consider big screen events for the future.
There are many venues in the city who will be screening the event and who would appreciate the publics support at this challenging time. A list can be found here.
In partnership with VisitWiltshire, Salisbury BID co-fund the Visit Salisbury website to promote the city to visitors. The Visit Salisbury website has a full events calendar for Salisbury.
