Hogmanay

The cancellation of Hogmanay was not a happy moment for all involved. Although the right decision was made, my heart sank when I got the call from the staff to say that the decision to cancel had been taken. As ever, we were caught between the rock and the hard place of cancelling too early and then the weather turning for the better and waiting to long and people not having enough time to make other arrangements. I don’t know that we will ever get that one absolutely right.The "you should have had a plan B brigade" clearly have no idea what it takes to organise this kind of even. You can’t have another venue on stand by. That would cost huge amounts of cash and apart from Murrayfield, there's nowhere big enough and the dynamics of a stadium concert are not the same as the outdoor city centre experience, which is what makes Edinburgh’s Hogmanay so unique.But there are things we can do. So much of the problem lies in the temporary nature of the stages. What creative way we can overcome that then becomes the question. Clearly the replacement for the Ross bandstand will help but we need other city centre performance spaces too. The running of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay goes back out to tender in the spring and I will be looking for innovation and creative answers to the need for safer, more robust performance spaces and other ideas that can make our Hogmanay experience better and better despite our unpredictable Scottish weather.