• Cultural impacts The main impacts of the ECoC in Pafos linked to culture were much more around improving the skills of cultural players than improving the cultural infrastructure of the city in terms of new venues, buildings and equipment. Another cultural impact of the ECoC highlighted by all local stakeholders was related to encouraging local cultural operators to expand their ‘repertoire’ into themes such as coexistence, tolerance and acceptance (key issues of the cultural programme). Prior to the ECoC, local actors, artists and other performers did not tend to approach these more deep-rooted and ‘serious’ issues in their work. Encouraged by their involvement in the ECoC, local artists developed a range of projects around these themes in a way that they had never done previously with them developing plays, paintings, sculptures and other artistic productions which depicted these issues and promoted aims such as coexistence. It was interesting to note that the local evaluation picked up on this issue and stated that the project leads taking part in their consultations felt that these themes would continue to be depicted in local cultural offerings going forward. • Access and participation Moving beyond this high-level evidence, at the level of both the audience attending the ECoC events and the volunteers supporting their delivery, Pafos2017 was successful at bringing together people from a variety of backgrounds. In this way, the ECoC was able to act as an important facilitator for creating interconnections between the separated local inhabitants of Pafos, the international expat community and traditional ‘beach tourists’ in Pafos, in line with its motto “Linking Continents – Bridging Cultures”. Two important factors contributed to the ECoC’s success of bringing together the local and international communities around cultural events. Firstly, in line with the “Open Air Factory” theme, evidence from the Cultural Programme shows that around 70% of cultural events took place outdoors, in the streets, squares, parks and beach of Pafos. This significantly increased the accessibility of the projects and made them very inclusive. Secondly, the community involvement and development strategy of the Pafos ECoC was primarily focused on ‘getting the numbers up’ by “go[ing] for mass participation activities to appeal to as many people as possible”. The ‘Music Together!’ project, for example, brought together professional musicians, musical conservatoires and choirs from Pafos to organise outdoor concerts in the city to bring together people from different nationalities living in Pafos. As highlighted above, the volunteer programme was one of the most important contributing factors to the success of the Pafos ECoC. In total, Pafos2017 was able to mobilise more than 350 local and international volunteers throughout 2017, which significantly contributed to ‘deepening’ the citizens’ level of participation and engagement with the ECoC. • Cultural capacity The impact of the ECoC on Pafos in terms of cultural capacity comprises four dimensions: ▪ Audience building; The ‘audience for culture’ built as a result of the cultural offer the ECoC made available to the local residents is therefore an important first result in terms of cultural impact. ▪ Cultural infrastructure; The ECoC functioned as an important catalyst for new infrastructure developments and renovations to host events and performances. ▪ Skills development; The ECoC open public consultation shows that 87% of respondents felt that ECoC had had some positive effect on building the cultural capacity of the sector in the city with 60% stating that the impact was either very high or high. ▪ Quality of cultural offer. The public consultation of the ECoC showed that 75% of respondents believed that the Pafos ECoC had very strong or strong quality cultural projects. The focus of Pafos2017 was more about encouraging the local population and tourists already in the city to take part in the ECoC. As stated above, one of the key objectives of the “Open Air Factory” was to reconnect the local citizens with the cultural and historical heritage of Pafos, in particular in the old city centre. According to all stakeholders linked to the visitor economy interviewed as part of this evaluation, the wider purpose of attracting more visitors to the old city centre was to increase its potential as a ‘cultural vector’ for tourism, in addition to the more ‘traditional beach tourism’ which Pafos has always been known for.