Liverpool will be Capital of Culture in 2008

The event is being held on the 20th day of the eighth month every year until 2008, when the city hosts the year-long European festival.

This year, the city is being split into eight cultural zones with 200 organisations involved.

The city council hopes the event will reassure critics who say plans for the festival have been hit by the cancelled 'Fourth Grace' building project.

On Tuesday, the council's chief executive, Sir David Henshaw, spent more than two hours explaining why architect Will Alsop's Cloud building was scrapped.

'Best in Europe'

It would have stood next to the so-called Three Graces on the city's famous waterfront.

City Council leader Mike Storey said: "The idea of celebrating our 2008 status on 20/08 has really captured people's imagination in Liverpool.

"With four years still to go to 2008 we are already showing what we can do through engaging the Liverpool community.

"No other city in Europe has this range of cultural activity on a single day - but this is only the start.

"We will continue to develop 20/08 every year in the run up to 2008 - it is bringing Liverpool alive, involving all kinds of organisations and people and highlighting some of the best things about our city."