Call for campaign to lure Olympics-sick Londoners to Edinburgh festivals

Published on 22/07/2012 00:00

TOURISM leaders have been urged to step up their efforts to promote Edinburgh’s festivals in London amid fears they will be swamped by coverage of the Olympics.

William Burdett-Coutts, the artistic director of Assembly Theatre, said the festival was facing headaches on a number of fronts this year, including difficulties getting performers into the UK, finding staff to work at venues and luring
audiences away from an aval­anche of televised sport to take in a show.

The first ten days of the world’s biggest arts festival, which features a record number of shows this year, clash with the Olympics, sparking fears that ticket sales may suffer.

Burdett-Coutts said there should be a more concerted 
effort to encourage Londoners to come north for the festival and escape the transport chaos expected to engulf the city during the Games.

He has urged VisitScotland and umbrella body Festivals Edinburgh to mount a cam­aign to lure brassed-off Londoners away from the city over the next few weeks.

But the agency, which has struck up official partnerships with VisitBritain and the ­Olympic organising committee, said it was not willing to go down the same road as Ireland, which has just mounted a campaign to target stressed-out Londoners.

In just a few days its promotional film, featuring one Londoner trying to reach the heart of the city while another is escaping to Ireland, has already had almost 100,000 hits on YouTube, dwarfing the success of VisitScotland’s nationwide “Surprise Yourself” advert, launched earlier this year.

However, there will be no dedicated Edinburgh festivals campaign. Instead, officials will be laying on press trips to Edinburgh for journalists visiting the UK as well as briefings in London to showcase the capital’s main events, which are now worth some £260 million to the economy.

Burdett-Coutts said advance ticket sales were roughly in line with last year, but said the first week of the Fringe was likely to be crucial for this year’s major venues.

“We can’t be sure of what impact the Olympics are going to have in Edinburgh, but I know for a fact there are a lot of really hacked-off Londoners about the level of disruption they are being warned to expect.

“We should be getting the message out to them that they can get away from all the hassle of the Olympics by coming to Edinburgh, in a similar way to this campaign in Ireland.

“However, I’ve not seen any evidence of this being done in London to promote the Edinburgh festivals, which I would have expected this year when there is going to be so much coverage of the Olympics
everywhere. The great unknown is whether people in Edinburgh will come out to shows when the big Olympic events are on.”

Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, said: “The south-east of England is Scotland’s largest market in terms of visitor numbers, and our domestic campaign has been specifically up-weighted over recent months to position Scotland as the ultimate getaway destination.”

Festivals Edinburgh said it was planning a number of joint initiatives with VisitBritain and the organisers of the games over the next month, but pointed out it had been running campaigns in London and the south-east of England since February.