Thousands of visitors and pounds poured into festival
The success of a mini Coastival arts festival brought thousands of extra visitors and a cash boost to Scarborough.
One of the new attractions is to become a permanent fixture after organisers decided the Coastival Choir should carry on singing.
Figures show a total of 6,133 attendances for the 50 events staged during “Back in Time with Coastival” over February 13 and 14.
It is estimated this this created a direct economic impact – money actually spent – of £22,797 for Scarborough.
The continuing effect of that money spent through the economy – known as the induced economic impact – is estimated at £42,574.
Highlights included Reverberation, a concert and exhibition celebrating Scarborough’s musical history; Timeless, a concert featuring some Coastival favourites; the Acoustic Lounge and Backseat Mafia, which brought new talent to Scarborough.
Rollercoastival activities for children were also very popular. New for this year was the creation of the Coastival Choir, brought together for the festival and performing for the first time at the end of a day of choir music at Scarborough Art Gallery.
The Coastival Choir will continue and from October will meet to rehearse every week.
Coastival’s organisers, Scarborough-based arts development agency Create, say the weekend was a resounding success.
Director Wendy Holroyd said: “We are delighted at getting more than 6,000 attendances to an arts festival in February and bringing a boost to the Scarborough economy at the same time.
“The feedback we had was terrific and we are really grateful to everyone who came from Scarborough and from further afield to support us.
“Now the hard work starts for Coastival 2016 and bringing more new and exciting attractions to the festival.”
Wendy Holroyd Hard work now starts on next year’s event
Coastival holds its mini, one or two-day festival on alternate years to its main, three-day event. Next year will see a return to the threeday format.