For the third year running, Victorious Festival kindly hosted the City Alliance Showcase on the festival site.
Shaping Portsmouth is part of the City Alliance alongside Portsmouth City Council, Portsmouth Creates, Portsmouth Pride, The HIVE and, joining us for the first time this year, URBOND.
Victorious has always been about bringing people together, and the festival gave us a fantastic opportunity to connect with organisations and individuals from across the city. Over the weekend, we caught up with familiar faces, met new people and had some great conversations about the work happening across Portsmouth.
It was also a great example of what being part of the City Alliance can achieve. Creating opportunities for organisations, businesses and individuals to come together to strengthen partnerships and open the door to new projects and collaborations. Over the weekend, we connected some of our partners with Portsmouth Pride and The Hive, while three new businesses also expressed an interest in finding out more about becoming Patrons of Shaping Portsmouth. These are the kinds of connections that can lead to new ideas, stronger relationships, and more opportunities for people and organisations across the city.
With Portsmouth 100 and the City of Culture Bid in mind, we were particularly interested in capturing the City Alliance guest’s thoughts on Portsmouth, so we asked visitors, partners and others we met over the weekend one simple question:
“What’s one thing about Portsmouth that you think more people should know about?”
The answers were wide-ranging. The waterfront and the sea came up regularly, along with the people, the city’s history, and its independent businesses. For others, the answer was more personal, from growing up here and building a life in the city to simply choosing Portsmouth as the place they want to call home.
Alongside the festival activities, we held a raffle to raise money for Veterans Outreach Support. We were delighted to raise more than £1,300 for the charity.
A huge thank you to Portsmouth Football Club and Solent Hotel for their generous donations, and to Delivered Social for providing the frame and helping us make the raffle happen. The winner will be announced later this week.
Thank you to everyone who stopped to say hello, shared what they love about Portsmouth, supported our raffle, spent time with us over the weekend or joined us on the viewing tower.
Finally, thank you to the Victorious team for welcoming us back for a third year and giving us another opportunity to be part of the festival. We thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and look forward to doing it all again.