River Festival & Proms in the Park 2010-CANCELLED !!

[Mori]

Another casulty of the funding Cutbacks

Herald

Glasgow festivals cancelled in funding squeeze

Published on 10 Apr 2010

Two popular summer events in Glasgow have been cancelled due to financial pressures.
The BBC has announced it will not be bringing Proms in the Park back to Glasgow but instead is in talks to take the concert to another Scottish city, reportedly Dundee.
Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) has also announced that a squeeze on arts funding has forced it to cancel the River Festival, which last year generated £1.5 million and attracted 90,000 people to the city.
The BBC is in talks to take the Proms in the Park event to another Scottish city.

[The Egg Man]

It's not easy to make too much sense of plans to cancel things like the River Festival without knowing just how money is put into this and other events.

The Herald article says "Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) has also announced that a squeeze on arts funding has forced it to cancel the River Festival, which last year generated £1.5 million" That strikes me as not bad for a two day event which cost £185,000 and brought 90,000 people into the city. There'll probably have been people who attended both days.

Only last week we were being told how well Celtic Connections was doing in having brought £10.1 million to Glasgow over 18 days at, I imagine, considerably greater cost. Because of how Glasgow Cultural Enterprises is run I doubt we'll ever know how much greater cost. Attendance over the whole 18 days was about 100,000, no doubt some of them attending more than one event.

[scaryman2u]

That to me is not too much of a disappointment as the last couple of years of the River Festival has been an absolute riot, no organisation and no coherent placement for events or visitors with folk milling around with no direction or supervision, more like a free for all. Hopefully this break will give them time to think about it.

[rabmania]

That to me is not too much of a disappointment as the last couple of years of the River Festival has been an absolute riot, no organisation and no coherent placement for events or visitors with folk milling around with no direction or supervision, more like a free for all. Hopefully this break will give them time to think about it.

For me it was a noise festival; shouty man telling us the zapcats were a) coming soon, b) zapping noisily and c) great weren' they?

I won't miss it in the form it took, but I'd love a real celebration of the river, its history, its present and future.

[Bankie Boy]

I for one will miss both events. I liked the River Festival, but loved The Proms in the Park. Went every year and saw it as one of my highlights of the year.

[Mori]

Just as a matter of interest to anyone that WILL miss the River Event.

This years budget that was to hold the event will be amalgamated in to next years,and there is to be a

"Grand gala opening for the new Transport Museum"

If thats any consolation to anyone at all.

[yoker brian]

Just as a matter of interest to anyone that WILL miss the River Event.

This years budget that was to hold the event will be amalgamated in to next years,and there is to be a

"Grand gala opening for the new Transport Museum"

If thats any consolation to anyone at all.

Except it's not a new transport museum - it's the shiny Riverside Museum

[dave2]

Proms in the park could go ahead with a commercial sponsor taking the role of city council/public purse - as Bank Of Scotland with Edinburgh Festival Fireworks.

On the other hand, if they go to another scottish city, ( BBC like to ahve an outdoor showing in London, North of Engaldn, Wales and Scotland in past years) that may mean that people travel to the event bringing tourist benefits to that city and that the cultural benefit is shared around scotland. Maybe even if it were to rotate. I'd Imagine Dundee would be the only other likely candidate as Aberdeen are strapped for cash big style. But maybe Stirling would pitch in as still being 'central belt'.

[Josef]

Which, to go off at a tangent, begs the question - are there any manufacturers or companies associated with Glasgow any more?

BoS and RBS are clearly Edinburgh, in terms of that's the first place you think of when you hear their names mentioned. But I can't, offhand, think of anyone in Glasgow in the same category.

Btw, I was in Dundee recently for the first time in quite a long while. I was more than pleasantly surprised.

[Dexter St. Clair]

and maydaze has gone too. Killed off by rain and a transfer to the old Fruitmarket as well as a lack of cash.