Coastival doubles its attendance

MORE THAN twice the number of people flocked to this year's second Coastival arts event in Scarborough compared to the last one in 2009, new figures reveal.

And that meant the economic impact of the event on Scarborough's economy also more than doubled.

Organisers say the total number of attendances at events over the three days in February was 19,851 - which is 120% greater than the first Coastival, in 2009.

The impact on Scarborough's economy is put at £361,584 - an increase of £146,001 on 2009.

Exactly half of those visitors (50%) came from out of town, with people coming from as far as the USA and the Netherlands and in this country across the whole of Yorkshire and as far as Yeovil and Portsmouth in the south, Caernarfon to the west, Dundee to the north and Norfolk to the east.

Coastival organiser Wendy Clews said she was amazed by the figures.

"We knew from the number of people at events that attendance would be up on 2009 but until the figures were collated we had no idea the increase would be so great," she said.

"This is tremendous news for Coastival and a great tribute to all the hard work put in by performers and organisers.

"Not only do these figures demonstrate just how successful Coastival was, they also show the tremendous impact our festival has on Scarborough's economy during a traditionally quiet month like February.

"What is particularly pleasing is to see that visitors came from all over this country and abroad and from all different age ranges and all different economic backgrounds.

"The figures give us an amazing boost and help motivate us towards planning further events for Scarborough - watch this space!"

Best attended events were the Acoustic Lounge at the Spa complex and the dinosaur displays by Dutch company Saurus. Most popular were the gig by Levellers, the Acoustic Lounge, the Musicport World Music events, the opening spectacular and lantern parade, Pete McKee at the Art Gallery and Woodend's events.

When audiences were asked to rate Coastival out of 10, 80% of those who responded gave it eight or above, with the most common score being 10.

An evaluation of the economic impact of Coastival revealed that the direct economic impact - money actually spent - was £402,205 for the UK economy as a whole and £361,584 for the Scarborough local economy. The continuing effect of that money spent through the economy - known as the induced economic impact - was £608,836 for the UK economy and £542,130 for the Scarborough local economy.

Coastival was held across three days, from Friday 18^th to Sunday 20^th February and featured 120 events in 30 venues. These included music, comedy, theatre, arts, performance and activities for children.

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