Fringe promoter set to lead Christmas Festival as it spreads across the city
Plus: Talks to save Capital's bus station and music festival takes over the Cowgate
Spread of £150m a year Christmas Festival to be led by Fringe company boss
One of the Fringe’s most successful promoters is to be handed the job of spreading Edinburgh’s Christmas Festival more widely around the city.
William Burdett-Coutts, of theatre and comedy promoters Assembly, will lead plans to take the celebrations into the Old Town and to local town centres around the Capital. Working alongside Alan Thomson, of Hogmanay Street Party organisers Unique Events, the pair are to be given a contract to jointly run the city’s Christmas and New Year festivities for up to five years.
Their Unique Assembly partnership has been running the events since stepping in to stage them at the last minute in 2022 following the collapse of a German consortium running them.
Where will the Festival spread? The organisers are being asked to plan a greater geographical spread of events, taking them beyond their traditional New Town base to include parts of the Old Town, including the High Street, Grassmarket and East Market Street, as well as the city’s nine local town centres; Corstorphine; Gorgie/Dalry; Leith Central; Leith Walk; Morningside/Bruntsfield; Nicolson St/Clerk St; Portobello; Stockbridge; and Tollcross.
Legal threat: The contract is expected to be awarded this week despite an ongoing legal challenge by a rival bidder GC Live who claim procurement processes have not been properly followed.
Track record: Burdett-Coutts’ Assembly company has been described as the National Theatre of the Fringe, where it has been staging events for more than 40 years, while Unique has been involved in running the city’s Hogamanay events since their launch in 1993.
The numbers: The contract awarded by the city council comes with annual funding of £812,456, however the contractors will pay up to around £300,000 a year back to the council for renting city centre sites. The festivities attract more than three million visitors and are estimated to be worth around £150m a year to the city economy.
Talking of the Festivals: The cruise ship MS Ambition which was used to house 1,000 refugees from Ukraine in Glasgow in 2022 is to berth in Edinburgh this summer to help relieve the Fringe accommodation crisis following its successful launch last year.
YOUR EDINBURGH BRIEFING
CITY SPICE: The queues down Princes Street for the opening of Uniqlo made the headlines last week, but you might have missed the other big shopping news. Asian supermarket institution Matthew’s Foods has opened a city centre outlet, with a branch on Early Grey Street, near Lothian Road. The Scottish chain is known to many Edinburghers through its supermarket and the Imperial Palace restaurant in Longstone.
NEW JOBS: Tesco has agreed a deal with the owners of Ocean Terminal which will bring a Tesco Express to the Leith waterfront development as part of multi-million pound plans to regenerate the site. The addition of the supermarket to the retail section of the redevelopment is expected to create up to 20 jobs as part of a major investment in Leith’s waterfront. The 4,700 sq ft ground floor unit will look out over a new public realm and future residential development.
HILLTOP OPENING: The Nelson Monument on Calton Hill is to reopen next month for the first time in more than four years following extensive repairs to the tower which commands stunning views over the city. The 210-year-old tower will welcome visitors over the summer months before closing again temporarily in the autumn for repairs to its timetable and the installation of a new mast.
NUMBER ONE HOTEL: A sister branch of a luxury hotel set to open in the West End this summer has been named the best in the UK by TripAdvisor. A 164-room Resident Hotel is opening in the former HM Revenue and Customs offices in Drumsheugh Gardens. Residents’ Covent Garden hotel was voted number one in the UK in TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Awards.
WASTE NOT: Edinburgh University is harnessing waste heat from one of its large computer server room to warm its buildings. At the moment, the computer equipment in the university's King's Buildings is prevented from overheating by chiller units on the roof which pump cool air into the server bays, but now the university plans to install a heat pump which will utilise the excess warm air. The project has received about £2.1m in Scottish government funding and it is hoped the pilot project can then be replicated using server rooms across the university's estate.
‘YOU KILLED THE MARKET’: First Minister Humza Yousaf has restored £80m of the £200m which he cut from the Scottish Government’s affordable housing budget in December. The move follows an outcry perhaps most brutally and eloquently expressed by high-profile property developer Chris Stewart last week when he told Scottish housing minister Paul McLennan: “You killed the market.” The exchange at the Scottish Property Federation’s annual conference, reported by the Daily Business, comes after rent controls and the planning system were blamed for the loss of £3 billion of investment in Scotland, mainly in the build to rent sector.
AIRBNB ‘SUPERLANDLORDS’: Alasdair Dougall Locke, founder and chairman of the UK’s largest owner of petrol station forecourts, Motor Fuel Group; Suad Al Sabah, an 82-year-old economist and member of the Royal Family of Kuwait; and the Gold Brothers, owners of a string of tourist gift shops; are among several individuals and companies identified as ‘superlandlords’, or owners of multiple short-term let properties in the Capital, by the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporter Service.
BUS STATION TALKS: The owners of Edinburgh’s bus station Coal Pensions Properties has told the city council it is willing to discuss an extension to the lease on the site amid fears the pension fund has earmarked the land for development. The city’s transport leader Councillor Scott Arthur has said it remains to be seen whether the local authority can afford the asking price.
THEATRICAL TATTOO: Theatre director Alan Lane has been appointed creative director of the Royal Military Tattoo ahead of its 75th anniversary. The man responsible for the spectacular opening of Leeds’ Year of Culture celebrations at Headingley Stadium and similar large-scale events in Hull and Liverpool will oversee next summer’s shows on the Castle Esplanade.
UNIVERSITY OPENS ROOMS: Community groups are being offered the free use of University of Edinburgh spaces following a successful pilot scheme involving 40 local organisations which saved them an estimated £16,500 in rent. The Community Access to Rooms initiative enables community groups to hire a range of University spaces at no cost when they are not in use for learning, teaching and research.
THE BUSINESS
Value of Business Tourism stressed as councillors make funding decision
City councillors look likely to agree a limited financial package to help fund a relaunched Edinburgh Convention Bureau, if a recommendation by officials to the Finance and Resources Committee is approved tomorrow. But it looks certain to be less than the sector is seeking.
Edinburgh International Conference Centre and its staff took “guardianship” of convention bureau activities two years ago following the city council’s decision to shut down Marketing Edinburgh, which had previously run Convention Edinburgh. The EICC has met the £150,000 cost of providing part-time staff, but this cannot be sustained and a permanent solution must now be found.
The EICC say a full time Edinburgh Convention Bureau would require 10-full-time staff – based on similar organisations elsewhere – and would cost around £1 million to run. They have suggested a phased introduction, starting with five full-time staff, costing almost £0.5 million and requiring council investment of £300,000 per year.
They have also offered to pay £1million towards the initial costs from their reserves – if the council will forgive loan stock in the EICC parent company in return. Officials are recommending investment of up to £250,000 for the next three years, with the situation to be reviewed thereafter depending on performance. They have cautioned councillors over budgetary pressures, but warned that any debt forgiveness would come with “opportunity cost.”
The EICC has partnered with Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce to showcase the power of business events for the city. At ‘Why business events matter: the economic power and impact of events’ at the EICC tomorrow, speakers from across Edinburgh’s events, technology, and academic sectors will discuss how a collaborative cross-sector approach can pay dividends for the city.
Liz McAreavey, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, added: “The £47 million economic benefit clearly illustrates the value that the convention bureau brings to the city. In addition to this, the bureau’s work supports jobs across a wide range of sectors in the city, both directly and indirectly.
“It is vital that our policy-makers understand the role and impact of business tourism, which attracts high-spending visitors, many of whom will return to the city for holidays after attending business events here, and some even to live and work. It is a crucial component in promoting our city to the global community and has proven to be extremely successful.”
HOTEL HEAVEN: Edinburgh has retained the accolade as the UK’s most “highly sought-after” market for hotel investment – thanks to the high performance of the city’s sector. In its annual UK Hotel Market Index, commercial property consultancy Colliers said the capital ranked number one due to its strong performance in both occupancy and average daily room rates during 2023, as well as its “impressive” revenue per available room growth since 2019.
APEX GROWTH: Edinburgh-based Apex Hotels has bought Meldrum House Country Hotel and Golf Course in Aberdeenshire - the group’s second rural property following the purchase of Pine Trees in Pitlochry last year. It is the 10th hotel within its UK wide portfolio.
SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT: Businesses in Haddington are being asked to tap into a new fund to enhance the appearance of the historic town centre. The Haddington Shopfront Improvement Grant Scheme has been launched by East Lothian Council and Haddington and District Community Council, funded by the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund. Grants of up to 75 per cent of eligible costs are available, up to a maximum of £3,000 for work including redecoration, signage, shopfront repairs or replacements.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
MUSIC STREET FESTIVAL: Edinburgh’s music street the Cowgate plays host to its annual festival this weekend with a packed programme headlined by local indie-rock darling Hamish Hawk, punk upstarts Benefits and Glasgow powerhouse Lucia and the Best Boys. Stag and Dagger turns every spare nook and cranny in the street into a music venue and specialises in showcasing talents that is about to be propelled into the big time. Among the acts Stag and Dagger crowds enjoyed before the rest of the world have been Ed Sheeran and Michael Kiwanuka.
FIRE FESTIVAL: Celebrate the arrival of summer in pagan style at one of the largest events of its kind in the world as the Beltane Fire Festival returns to Calton Hill tomorrow night. The revived festival, which retells the story of the May Queen and Green Man with a spectacular cast of fire jugglers, acrobats, dancers and musicians, is now in its 36th year. The ticketed event starts at 8pm until 1am.
SWAN LAKE: A stripped back retelling of the classic tale, Scottish Ballet brings its Swan Lake to the Festival Theatre from Thursday to Saturday. It has been well received by critics including in this review which describes this staging as “supremely moving”.
QUICK BITES
SAUCY WIN: East Coast in Musselburgh has been named the joint-best chip shop in Britain in a list compiled for an online betting company through analysis of Google, Tripadvisor and Instagram data.
QUALITY GUIDE: An Edinburgh restaurant is one of eight in the UK and Ireland to be added to The Michelin Guide in the past month. The Montrose is sister to the Michelin-starred Timberyard. Michelin awards, such as stars and bib gourmands, are only announced at an annual ceremony but inclusion in the Guide is also seen as a strong indicator of quality. Well done!
VIVA: Mexican diner Taco Libre has opened a new restaurant in the city centre, their second, in Rose Street, taking over the premises of the former Viva Bar. The new venue adds to their original in Shandwick Place.