Former culture chief accuses Edinburgh’s heritage status of becoming overwhelmed with visitors

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Lynne Halfpenny, the council’s culture director until early this year, dismissed suggestions that Edinburgh residents had fallen in love with festivals as nonsense at Wednesday’s summit called to help shape the future of major cultural events in the city.

She insisted that the Old Town and the Royal Mile had become inundated with visitors and were seen as a must-see destination due to Edinburgh’s designation by Unesco and not its status as a festival city.

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Ms Halfpenny said the festivals were caught in a polarized debate over their impact on the city as the focus should instead be on how to manage the number of visitors to the World Heritage site when the tourism industry in the city ​​will recover.

The summit was held against the backdrop of debate over efforts to revive the city’s summer festivals, which drew a record audiences of over 4.4 million in 2019.

The festivals were linked to the fact that Edinburgh was one of the overtourism hotspots in the world, alongside Venice, Barcelona, ​​Amsterdam and Rome. Edinburgh World Heritage and the Cockburn Association have raised concerns about their impact on the environment, amid calls for restrictions on the city’s festivization by banning long-standing events and sites.

Organizers of major city events attended the Rediscovering Our Festival City summit which was hosted by the book festival in its new headquarters at Edinburgh College of Art.

Edinburgh International Book Festival director Nick Barley said: “Around the world, Edinburgh is regarded as an extraordinary phenomenon and a 75-year-old success story because of the quality of its festivals and which is made for the reputation of the city. If you talk to the locals, of course, the picture is more mixed.

Edinburgh was named last year as a hotspot for overtourism in 2019. Photo: Ian Georgeson

“I think it’s worth remembering that the festivals have been so successful mainly because of the appetites of the citizens of this city.

“Where does this appetite come from, what has sustained it and where in recent years have we lost touch with the idea of ​​ourselves as a festival city? How can we rediscover this mood and appetite? How can we fall in love with this idea again?

However, Ms Halfpenny, who has over 35 years of experience in the Scottish cultural sector, said: I don’t agree that we have fallen in love with our festivals. I think this is absolute nonsense.

“This city loves its festivals and the world loves Edinburgh and its festivals. Festivals are the success story here. We should stop kicking ourselves.

Over 2.2 million people visited Edinburgh Castle in 2019.

I don’t think the World Heritage Site status has done us any good in Edinburgh. I actually think that’s one of the issues we need to have a broader discussion on.

I know, having lived in this city since 1981, the number of people coming to Edinburgh has probably increased as they were now on the priority list.

“Everyone wants to visit Unesco World Heritage sites and our Edinburgh Castle is Scotland’s most visited. Why ? It’s because Edinburgh is a World Heritage Site, not because it’s a festival city.

If we were talking about recovery in the future and were going to mitigate the impact of being a World Heritage Site, we were going to have to manage how we deal with the public coming to view our heritage. The problem for me is more about this.

Shona the Musical Choir was among the artists who performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Photo: Jess Shurte

The city’s overwhelming was not due to the festivals. It was overwhelmed by people coming to see the heritage buildings, the Royal Mile and the Old Town.

Former city council chief Donald Anderson pleaded for a calmer public debate on the future of festivals, saying he had recently fallen into resentment and hostility.

He said: Make no mistake, the point is that the people of Edinburgh love festivals.

The council asks residents every two years if they think festivals make Edinburgh a better place to live. 72% of residents answered yes in the last survey.

“I am sorry for the debate that sometimes takes place. Festivals make such an important contribution and are as important to Edinburgh as its buildings.

There are hardly any buildings on the risk register. This is in large part thanks to the economic dynamism that festivals bring to Edinburgh.

Lynne Halfpenny was Director of Culture at Edinburgh City Council.

“We need to bring the parties together rather than leading the debate on social media, as this is not helpful and does not resolve the issue or debate issues properly.

Ahead of the start of this year’s festivals, Cliff Hague, chairman of the Cockburn Association, said the future of the Scottish capital would be at stake once the Covid crisis was overcome, insisting there were already pressures to return to normal as soon as possible.

He told the summit: The issue of growth must be linked to pushing austerity. The two go hand in hand to push culture towards events.

Many of the consequences, I readily admit, were not designed by the cultural sector, but one has to extrapolate from the way this policy was developed and implemented to see the results, such as the escalation of ‘Airbnb for example. It is clearly a virus in Edinburgh in the speed with which it emptied the old town. The cultural sector was tangent to this, but it was a factor, unfortunately.

The summit was held days after a new long-term vision for Edinburgh festivals pledged that there would be no return to the pre-pandemic status quo in a bid to reduce their impact on environment, encourage responsible tourism and ensure that people working on events are treated better.

Vision 2030, created by Festivals Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Festivals Forum, commits organizers to strike a better balance, help restore a healthy economy to Edinburgh and improve the quality of life for the city’s residents.

Backed by major festival funders, it includes a strong commitment to making Edinburgh a beacon of what a leading sustainable festival city could look like by 2030.

Fringe Society Executive Director Shona McCarthy said at the summit: “The very idea of ​​a moment of reflection, pause, breath and reflect, was taken very seriously by everyone in the world. Fringe landscape.

I haven’t heard a single person say that we want to get back to normal. Everyone wants to take this moment to rethink and reflect.

Fringe Society President Benny Higgins said: There is a great love for Edinburgh festivals. We should not forget that.

“The fact that there may sometimes be loud opposition, whether on social media or otherwise, should not be taken as representative of the whole.

“We need to make sure that culture is not ashamed of contributing to economic growth and a resilient and robust economy.

“We also want to create a different, fairer post-Covid society. The pandemic has illuminated and exacerbated inequalities. We have a really important role to play.

International Festival Director Fergus Linehan said: Much of the language and emphasis on growth has not come from something particularly strategic in the cultural sector. It came from imperatives within the government.

“I don’t think any of us were interested in it because we were interested in economic growth, but it became the main thing that got our heads nodding around the Cabinet table.

“Events are incredibly attractive to governments. They don’t have to build anything or create permanent jobs.

“We should not underestimate the magnitude of economic growth that will be a factor in the years to come. The economic argument is always the thing that lands.

“The issue of growth is one that we really need to watch very closely, because I don’t think it’s behind us yet.

Kate Wimpress, director of the North Edinburgh Arts Center, said: In our understandable rush to get back to usual comfort, we really can’t let complacency return.

“The front was just not good enough for many. I still hope we can use this time to force the change and really upset the mindset that has always been done that way and to improve things. tough choices that protect those on the edge.

“To get the most out of our city of festivals, we need to hear and continue to hear a wide range of voices to assess and address the many complexities and competing agendas.

“We need to focus on the small scale, the local, the people, the connected and the imperfect.

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