THE SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY IN VISITOR EXPERIENCES IS OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING THAT I’M SURE ALL OF THE CITIES ARE LOOKING AT AND THE WAYS THAT WE’VE APPROACHED THAT IN MORE DEPTH IS TO MINE OUR ARCHIVE


Julia Amour, Director of Festivals Edinburgh


Addressing delegates, she said Julia Amour, Director of Festivals


Edinburgh, said the festivals are also starting to open up their ar- chives and carry out a digitisation process – bringing to life the vast collection of past resources which can be used to engage audiences online in new and ‘immersive’ ways. “We’re digitising these images,


we’re geo-tagging these images and we’re creating ways in which our festivals can capitalise on that treasure chest of stories and our audiences can have more person- alised experiences as well as collec- tive experiences,” she said.


AMOUR WAS speaking at the European Cities Marketing confer- ence in the capital, where over 200 marketing specialists from cities across Europe gathered last month for their spring meeting – which looks at latest events and tourism trends across the continent.


that she wanted to use technol- ogy as a means to ‘disrupt’ the ‘disconnected’ experiences that audiences at Edinburgh Festivals were currently having, adding: “We think about this as dramatis- ing our city as a live gaming or digital storytelling platform, and that really excites us. Tat taps into the growing number of Edinburgh Festivals visitors seeking extraordi- nary experiences and often based on what they can participate in as well as spectate at and, of course, on the basis of instagrammability, these days.” “Te search for authenticity in


visitor experiences is obviously something that I’m sure all of the cities are looking at and the ways that we’ve approached that in more depth is to mine our archive,” she said. Among the digital artefacts that


the Festivals have opened up to the public include a black-and-white photograph of filmmaker Orson Wells attending the Edinburgh International Film Festival in the 1950s and a picture of author JK Rowling attending the 1997 Edin- burgh International Book Festival, where she did her first-ever public reading of her first Harry Potter book to 30 schoolchildren in a tent. Te initiative supports the grow-


ing trend for events to be gamified or ‘experiential’, especially for


mass participation events, such as the Torchlight Procession at Hogmanay, Amour said, and allows audiences to feel like they are help- ing to create “something special”. She also wants the festivals to focus on the “quality of the offer and quality of the experience”.


WHEN ASKED by an audience member how she would spend an imaginary €100m to improve the festival experience, Amour said that one of the segments of the ex- isting £1.3bn City Region Deal for Edinburgh and South East Scotland was based around festivals and tourism and that the money could be invested in using technology to improve the visitor experience and management of people around the city. She added: “We’re working with


our leading universities to look at using immersive digital technology and experimenting with public realm Internet of Tings that we’re intending to put in place here in the city centre.” She said that data management


and technology could help festival organisers “get on top” of some of the visitor flows and issues which stem from that, saying it could also help the festivals “make common cause” with the sharing economy. Her comments follow some of the criticisms in a council report last year expressing concern around overtourism and pavement crowd- ing which was creating “pinch points” in the centre of the city at peak times. Te report came out after Edinburgh’s festivals received a record 4.6m visitors in 2017.


AMOUR ALSO used her speech to warn against the rise of populist politics across the globe which may be putting people off visiting amid fears the UK is becoming a “less friendly” place and one that wants to “close its borders”. She said: “And that’s a real risk


for the festivals in terms of our global offer, particularly from people trying to come from coun- tries in conflict or from peoples of colour. And that could have a ma- jor effect on us and on the reputa- tion of our city and country and of inbound tourism. So several of our festivals and artists have spoken out publicly to try and ensure that we are able to remain an open and culturally curious nation and build on that as never before.” n


Homegrown events have lasting impact despite temptation to ‘parachute’ in major events, say Fringe boss


Homegrown events have a far greater capacity to make a lasting impact over major events that are ‘parachuted’ in for political reasons, Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, has said. The Edinburgh Fringe, which has run for 72 years and attracts over 4m visitors, started with six local the- atre groups and two from England, and McCarthy said as a reminder to European destination marketers at their spring meeting to avoid the “temptation” of bidding for major events on the circuit that bring a high profile to cities but whose lasting legacy is arguably negligble compared to those that are cultivated over time. McCarthy, who ran the


Culture Company, which was responsible for leading on Derry-Londonderry’s year as the inaugural UK City of Culture before joining the Fringe in 2016, said: “It’s such a temptation to bring things in from the outside, to parachute the major events whether it’s the Clip- per Round the World Yacht Race, or the MTV Awards, it seems to be always what the politicians want. But my experience, the things that stick, the things that stay, that really engage civic pride and provide a platform for cultural practitioners are the things that are homegrown, the things that speak to the DNA of a place.”


EVENTSBASE | SPRING 2019 | 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44