Festival’s failings under spotlight
CROWD PULLER: The festival drew the biggest audience over the weekend
Councillors are due to face the music tonight (Tuesday) over the £394,000 loss incurred by the Love Luton Festival.
A report on the festival and why it lost so much money will be presented to a full council meeting at the Town Hall, starting at 6pm.
The report by corporate director Colin Chick, published in advance of the meeting, looks at what went wrong with the marketing and ticketing strategy for the event.
A number of reasons are given for poor sales, including pricing, poor weather, the English Defence League and negative coverage by local media.
However, a survey by Leicester De Montfort University found that local media was actually the top reason for people hearing about the festival.
The report also shows that, contrary to statements that 67,000 people had attended the festival across the weekend, the figure was actually 37,000.
The university’s report states that attendees would have gone to an average of two events each, making 67,000 ‘attendances’.
Crowds at the carnival are thought to have made up for nearly half of the weekend’s audience.
From 600 responses to their survey, the research team found that 75 per cent of people who went to the festival were from LU postcodes, with the remainder travelling from further afield.
For live updates on the meeting follow @lutonnewssally on Twitter
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Weather for Luton
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 15 C
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