Do Liverpool really do that?
Sure there's a (very gut wrenching) Beatles tourist industry here but that doesn't receive any council funding etc
There used to be a Beatles themed festival called the Matthew St festival which was council funded but that was cut out of the culture programme a long time before any budget cuts. The Liverpool Culture Company, despite cuts are still promoting events in the city to attract tourists and those events have very little to do with the Beatles. The Beatles industry is something that developeed naturally with all the American and Japanese tourists that came to the city every year. People filled a need and created their own businesses, it promotes itself.
Football is a far bigger attractor to Liverpool than the Beatles in terms of tourist spend by a big margin
Does Birmingham have a council run department that runs festivals and other cultural events? A city the size of Birmingham should have stuff on every weekend, big iconic events. In the summer we have Festivals in Sefton park, some of them are even free. There's other festivals like the Smithdown Road Festival where all the bars on the road put up stages, the road is closed, it all takes council approval and help but does anything like that happen in Birmingham? Councils need to act as a catalyst, offer advice and help too, to these events, show they can be done and after a while private business takes over and they become self serving.
The idea that Liverpool's tourism or Manchester's for that matter is about The Beatles or Joy Division / The Smiths is silly, they are cultural reference points, that is all. Football does much more for both those cities tourism than music but the music of today plays a part, not some museum acts that don't exist any more
Birmingham Council doesn't seem to have the imagination or the will to try and attract such events. The city has lots of parks that would be suitable, it has a musical history, they should use thos parks for festivals, they should use Birminghams fantastic multicultural history as another reference point. In short Birmingham doesn't celebrate it's cultural history anywhere near enough. It really is a case of build it and they will come.