Cambridge Live is the new charity set up by Cambridge City Council to take over the running of the Corn Exchange, Cambridge Folk Festival and the council’s free City Events programme.
Cambridge Live offers an eclectic variety of excellent and innovative activities, which reach 300,000 visitors each year. These range from the Brussels Philharmonic and the Philip Glass Ensemble playing the Corn Exchange to cookery competitions and boxing matches in the Guildhall; from Folk Festival workshops on willow sculpture and children’s instrument-making to Van Morrison and the Fisherman’s Friends; and from festive fireworks to the Tour de France.
As Cambridge Live moved to being an independent charitable company, a tender process commenced to ensure that a standalone IT infrastructure could be put in place for the new organisation.
The system implementation had to be realised in a short time with no disruption to Cambridge Live and no loss of historical data. The job of installing and configuring the new system was awarded to Boldfield – a local business which specialises in implementing and supporting IT Solutions. The project ran for four months and completed bang on schedule – including the point where staff left one system on Friday and resumed work on Monday to a brand new 50-user IT infrastructure without a hitch.
After the successful installation, Boldfield’s MD Andy Irvine said:“Cambridge Live came to us with a challenge to untangle them from the City Council’s IT infrastructure and to create a new entity without downtime and that still contained their old data. Our team worked with Cambridge Live and the IT team at Cambridge City to achieve this goal in a timescale that originally looked impossible. We now feel privileged to support Cambridge Live as they bring their diverse and exciting range of art events that enrich the lives of people in the region.”
Cambridge Live’s Founding Chair Sara Garnham said: "We were delighted that Boldfield’s professionalism and 'can do' attitude exhibited during the rigorous selection process was realised 100% when dealing with our tough targets to deliver a seamless transition from part of the large City Council IT framework to our own independent network. We are lucky to have such a great local company looking after our business critical systems.”
Cambridge Live’s Managing Director Steve Bagnall said: “It was important to us that we had an extremely smooth transition from being part of the City Council to starting life as a standalone organisation. We simply could not afford to have any downtime. Boldfield delivered for us and we are now enjoying their responsive IT support. It was also important that the relationship was a partnership. We value the efforts Boldfield have made to understand our business and to ensure their services support our business needs."
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