Hogmanay Street Party - 'A more hard-nosed approach is right'

But even the visionary promoter Pete Irvine could not have foreseen the success ahead when he launched the first relatively low-key event in 1993.

Since then it has taken on a life of its own, attracting 200,000 revellers at its peak, and making Edinburgh the world's favourite party destination at New Year.

The event may have lost a little of its lustre in recent years compared to the heady nights of the Millennium celebrations and Kylie Minogue at the Castle, but it is still big enough to have generated an estimated 29 million for the Scottish economy last year, with most of that spent in the Capital.

But organisers are now facing an unprecedented squeeze on the public funding which has bankrolled the event's success.

The days of 1.4 million grants and bail-outs to cover the shortfall left by disappointing ticket sales are over - and quite rightly so.

Many people would go even further and question whether the city should be paying for an event that can't sell enough tickets at a good enough price to cover its own costs.

After all, the city's council tax payers will still be footing a 1 million plus bill for an event that most will be giving a wide berth.

There is a danger though of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The council is right to take a more hard-nosed business approach to the Street Party in these days of austerity. If low ticket sales mean one of the entertainment stages has to be axed then so be it.

The celebrations in the Capital will still stand up against the best of the rest in Scotland, when every other city is either ditching or scaling back its party.

But the value of our Hogmanay celebrations needs to be measured in more than simple ticket sales. This city success story is still worth investing in even if we cannot afford to do so to the same extent as before.

Without it, and the hundreds of thousands of extra tourists it brings, we would be literally much poorer.