£650,000 bale-out for Festival of the Sea

Published on Tuesday 10 June 2003 01:00

TAXPAYERS face a £650,000 bill to bale out the unsuccessful International Festival of the Sea.

The cash comes on top of 100,000 given to organisers by the Scottish Executive, taking the total public bill for the failed event to 750,000.

After the public failed to support the event, council chiefs now face a bill of 150,000 after promising to underwrite the event. That comes on top of guaranteed payments from Scottish

Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian that are expected to reach 500,000.

Now a campaign promoting Edinburgh around the world faces being scaled down to allow the city to meet the cost of staging the event which attracted only one third of the anticipated number of paying customers.

More than half of the 150,000 needed had been promised to Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board to promote the city’s festivals and events abroad - on the condition that the Festival of the Sea was a success.

The International Festival of the Sea, the company behind the event, said the Leith extravaganza was likely to lose a lot of money and admitted it had not marketed the festivities well enough.

But the firm refused to say whether it was likely to make a loss once it had received its bale-out of public money.

About 50,000 people paid to attend the spectacular at Leith Docks. With admission costing 15 for adults and 7.50 for children, income from tickets is likely to be well over 500,000.

It is thought around 300,000 more was brought in through charges to catering firms operating at the festival, programme sales and exhibition entrance fees.

But organisers say the event cost about 2 million. The tourist board said it was now reviewing the future of its successful Eventful Edinburgh campaign, which it launched last year. It had been hoping to extend the drive for up to three years and had originally asked the council for 100,000 towards that, before being told to expect 77,000.

A tourist board spokeswoman said: "This doesn’t mean Eventful Edinburgh will be stopping. We’ll be speaking to our other funders, including VisitScotland and within the private sector, with a view to keeping it going.

"It’s fair to say we’re disappointed more people were not persuaded to visit a showpiece event.

"There will be a thorough review of the event involving the organisers and the agencies involved and we look forward to participating in those discussions."

The city council said it had been forced to rethink its priorities after the Festival of the Sea. A spokeswoman said: "The extra 77,000 was dependent on the successful staging of the festival in Leith, but it looks as if we’re going to have to pay the full 150,000. We’re looking into other options for the tourist board funding but it’s early days."

Festival organisers are also set to receive a further 250,000 of public money from Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian, which also agreed to underwrite the event, in addition to giving a direct grant of 250,000.

City Tory group leader Iain Whyte said: "We’ll want to see a full report on what the impact is going to be for the council and the local tourism industry.

"This was a classic example of ploughing money into a big one-off spectacular rather than investing in a long-term tourism strategy."

Council leader Donald Anderson said he believed the festival had been over-priced, adding:

"We agreed to underwrite the event in order to bring it to Leith on the basis that there may be a call on the money, but we’re obviously disappointed."

Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian confirmed it had supported the event with a 250,000 repayable grant and underwriting of a further 250,000.

Executive director Paul Lewis said: "The number of visitors was less than had been hoped for, however it still delivered significant additional economic benefit, likely to be in the region of 4m to the Leith area and the wider city."

But when the event was announced the organisers predicted it would generate around 10m for the Capital.