Festival Fireworks
Sunday night I was at the Festival Fireworks concert. What an event that is. I’m told it’s the largest classical concert in the world. Certainly with an audience of 250,000 plus it must be right up there with the best.
The crowd was a wonderful wide mixture. I could see all ages and a mix of fashion from shell suit to cashmere and barbour, (sorry about the stereotyping but you get my point). From what I could gauge there was also a healthy mix of locals and tourists.
That of course, is one of the difficult tensions we have in the city. Tourism brings in millions to our economy. The Festival alone brings in £184m. 10% of Edinburgh’s jobs are tourism related. The money spent by tourists helps keeps businesses going, even helps us invest in new buses, so that local people can benefit all year round. We have become a 24-hour, 12 months of the year city.
But the 24-hour city brings its problems. Noise, cleanliness, pressure on police and other services are just some of the difficulties we experience. Especially in the Festival when the population doubles. Yet we don’t want to return to the sleepy provincial city of 25 years ago.
The crowd was a wonderful wide mixture. I could see all ages and a mix of fashion from shell suit to cashmere and barbour, (sorry about the stereotyping but you get my point). From what I could gauge there was also a healthy mix of locals and tourists.
That of course, is one of the difficult tensions we have in the city. Tourism brings in millions to our economy. The Festival alone brings in £184m. 10% of Edinburgh’s jobs are tourism related. The money spent by tourists helps keeps businesses going, even helps us invest in new buses, so that local people can benefit all year round. We have become a 24-hour, 12 months of the year city.
But the 24-hour city brings its problems. Noise, cleanliness, pressure on police and other services are just some of the difficulties we experience. Especially in the Festival when the population doubles. Yet we don’t want to return to the sleepy provincial city of 25 years ago.
posted by Councillor Ewan Aitken at
12:24 am
