7:00am Tuesday 9th December 2008
By Neal Butterworth
IT WON’T come as any surprise to learn that there were a fair few people on tenterhooks before Bournemouth’s first free air festival took off in the summer.
To be honest, I was one of them and even after the Echo had committed itself to a role as media sponsor – and committed acres of space in our papers and online over the course of the four days – there were still some nagging doubts whether the council and the town could pull it off.
And boy, did they pull it off.
Not only was the entire festival a roaring success from a marketing and awareness perspective, but figures show it brought a staggering amount of money to the town.
The council – indeed everyone involved – can rightly celebrate its one of its biggest events in the town’s 198-year history.
I’m sure we all look forward to similar success next year, but with its confidence well and truly back, Bournemouth must now look to create even more reasons to come to these shores.
It has proved that with the right financial clout and support of the business community, it can turn the germ of an idea into a tremendous fillip for the whole area.
That the festival will be even bigger and better in 2009 has to go without saying, but let’s not stop there.
There are many successful festivals and events that happen around the UK and mainland Europe that Bournemouth is capable of staging, some of them alongside its tourism partners in the county.
Sport, film, food and music are just four of the subjects that the right ideas could turn into even more gold for the town.
It’s a tough time to be planning, but the skies are clearly no longer the limit.
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