Why we are critical of the Oldham live event

Ex-Oldham Chronicle journalists now working in Oldham Council’s communications team (press team) made the point on social media that they found it strange that people had been critical of the Oldham live event and it was as if they wanted the event to fail. Our criticism of the event is that it is once again to a large degree public funded and that the council’s substantial contribution is solely to advertise the shops and businesses at the public funded £39.4 million old town hall and Parliament Square. Oldham live was touted as the closing event of the #YourOldham festival which it clearly has no connection with in reality. #YourOldham was a series of talks and events which took place during the hours most residents are at work and school. The event was targeted at coop councils and coop business partners who just happened to be in Oldham for a two day cooperative council’s meeting at the civic centre. If you check out social media you will see Oldham Council’s videos taken from within the crowds to create an exaggerated view of attendance figures we found a video taken when the headline act was playing that showed a different perspective. Is it good value for money to put on events for a few hundred of Oldham’s quarter of a million residents when constantly complaining about budget cuts?