Vilnius 700th anniversary

Entered by: Go VilniusVilnius, the capital of Lithuania, celebrates a historic milestone in 2023—its 700th anniversary. In 2021 only 29% of Vilnius’ residents and 15% of Lithuanian residents knew about the upcoming birthday. Therefore, the celebration created a unique opportunity to boost citizen engagement and bring together tourism, event planning industries, cultural and business sectors to devise an intense, culturally rich, and unprecedented three-year program Vilnius: 700 Years Young.Vilnius set up ambitious goals for the anniversary—spiking up resident interest, announcing the festivities at national and global levels, and inviting global travellers. The city needed to overcome challenges like short preparation time to create and implement numerous city-wide initiatives, low budget, and the lack of global examples to guide throughout the years-long celebration. The programme had to appeal to numerous stakeholders: Vilnius City Municipality, national government institutions, and subordinate institutions in Lithuania, embassies in other countries, and residents. The post-pandemic period called for planning the entire program in three different scenarios: full-on restrictions for events, partial and no restrictions. When the war in Ukraine started, the programme was once more changed to include initiatives to support Ukraine and its refugees relocated in Vilnius.The strategy revolved around one message, one sign, and one celebration. Vilnius: 700 Years Young was created to show the world that being young is not about age or physical matters, it’s about the will to stay energetic, creative, and one-of-a-kind. Therefore, the notion ‘700 years young’ is evident across all celebratory events and different sectors. Strategic planning of the anniversary programme started at the governmental level—seven ministries, the Parliament, Vilnius City Municipality, other national institutions, and private initiatives declared a mutual goal plan that was unprecedented in the history of Lithuania. Co-creation, incentives for target audiences, and the continuation of new projects were key aspects of the strategic actions. Go Vilnius, the official tourism and business development agency of Vilnius, coordinated the entire three-year programme from 2021 to 2023 by enabling and encouraging co-creativity. Two years of preparation and one year of implementation were needed to fully carry out the anniversary idea and entrench the occasion as a historic event in the country. The programme encompassed different areas like education, culture, community, as well as the fortification of current traditions, and the creation of new ones that would extend way beyond the anniversary year. The urban festival As Young As Vilnius is to become an annual summertime event., Vilnius collaborated with partners to come up with the most non-traditional solutions to fuse all of these aspects into one cohesive programme with a clear message. The target audience was a crucial part of the strategy: Vilnius’ and Lithuanian residents were urged to take pride in their capital, be its ambassadors, and co-create the anniversary programme, while residents of Latvia, Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom—the priority tourism markets—were given the incentive to come for a visit.Vilnius city also wanted new and lasting initiatives to mark the celebration as a starting point of the new era for the city. The idea was to launch new projects to celebrate Vilnius’ anniversary which would continue on as annual traditions. Though already well-established and ongoing, the current programme is also meant to inspire partnerships every single day and fill the city with initiatives—from special invitations to talents located abroad to various ways of representing the city’s multicultural legacy.Implementing the anniversary programme required interinstitutional coordination, and communication actions aimed toward local and foreign media to convey a unified message and enhance Vilnius’ recognition. Vilnius’ 699 birthday was the test run to set the tone for events in 2022 & in 2023 Vilnius started a new tradition to have two birthdays: the real one in January, and the second one on July 25th, the day of St. Christopher, the patron saint of Vilnius. This year’s July birthday was celebrated with a novel free summertime festival, where Lithuanian and foreign music stars performed in Vilnius’ largest arena and one of the greenest spots of the city. Vilnius’ residential districts, located further from the centre, do not have the infrastructure for concerts, and events are rarely organized there. This changed during the birthday year—local communities got to attend days[1]long festivals and listen to their favourite performers for free in undiscovered spaces.Educational and science communities, schools, kindergartens, and universities decorated their buildings with the anniversary attributes, created dance and song programs, read poetry, and organised educational activities and trips. Private initiatives contributed to the 700th-anniversary programme after public tenders for culture, community, and sports events were held last year. 250 private initiatives combining culture, community, and sports were added to the programme. Partners were active in communication, outdoor and television advertising, and social media. The anniversary project implementation extended to different Lithuanian regions, building the understanding that the capital’s birthday is the celebration for all Lithuania. The Dream of Vilnius and a project Opera on Wheels toured the country’s cities and garnered large interest from local media, regional municipalities, and communities. Vilnius boasts of extraordinary gastronomical experiences, so food plays a large part in the anniversary program. A historical menu was created to allow tasting dishes entwined with stories about Vilnius. Pink Soup Fest, a festival to honour the Lithuanian summertime staple—cold beetroot soup—is set to be another recurring tradition. It celebrates the best gastronomic spots in the capital and invited the festivalgoers to try out new variations of the beloved dish. Vilnius actively communicated in foreign countries. Vilnius’ Belated Birthday E-Cards was a way to remind the world to greet Vilnius for its birthday even though not everyone knows where it is. A digital e-card campaign represented in a 90s-style infomercial was broadcast in the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, and Latvia. Vilnius city troupes invited foreign residents to visit the capital through special performances, lectures, and movies in Poland, Latvia, and the United KingdomThe results show spiked awareness surrounding Vilnius’ anniversary—96% of Vilnius’ residents and 78% of remaining Lithuania’s residents knew about the birthday in 2023. This boosted a positive perception of the anniversary programme, generated a better understanding of the occasion’s significance, increased engagement, and attendance levels. The overall number of all partners is over 1,000. At the beginning of 2023, major global news portals—CNN, the New York Times, and others—announced Vilnius as one of the top recommended destinations because of the anniversary year. The project increased foreign residents’ interest in Vilnius: 72% of Latvian, 36% of Polish, 13% of German, and 10% of UK large city residents found out about the birthday. Thousands of spectators came to anniversary events. Attendees at As Young As Vilnius in 2022 was c. 50,000, rising to 70,000 at the same event in 2023.

Vilnius 700th anniversary

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