CASE STUDY: EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL – FESTIVAL OF

IDEAS, JOURNEYING AND IMAGINING

Edinburgh’s festivals are a vital part of Edinburgh’s life, contributing major cultural, so
cial, and economic impacts as well as enhancing the city’s civic profile. The economic
impact of the festivals is well documented.

Recent research by The City of Edinburgh Council and partners revealed that
Edinburh’s 2004 summer festivals generated an estimated £127 million and supported
up to 2,500 FTE (full-
time equivalent) jobs. The study reveals that there were 2.6 million festival attendees
last year representing a 63% increase in festival attendance since 1997 (SQW Ltd and
TNS Travel and Tourism, 2005). The multiplier effect on tourism businesses in the city
is also significant, with hotel occupancy rates typically soaring to 80–
90% in the capital during the festival period.

Beyond economic impacts, the festivals

also play an important role in the cultural life of the city with 36% of festival attendee
coming from the local community. Edinburgh is host to 15 diverse national and intern
ational festivals annually, as well as several community and participative festivals. The
se range from the prominent and internationally known.

Hogmanay and the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) to lesser known but equally
important festivals, such as The Harp Festival and the Scottish International
StorytellIng Festival. Together with its counterparts, the international Jazz, Fringe and
Film festivals, the Edinburgh International Book Festival forms what is now widely reg
arded as the biggest and best arts festival in the world, during the summer months in
Edinburh.

Background
The Edinburgh International Book Festival began in 1983 and is now a key event in the
August festival season, celebrated annually in Scotland’s capital city. Biennial at first,
the book festival became a yearly celebration in 1997. Throughout its 20-
year history, the festival has grown rapidly in size and scope to become the largest
and most dynamic festival of its kind in the world. In its first year, the book festival
played host to just 30 ‘Meet the author’ events. Today, the festival programs over 600
events, which are enjoyed by people of all ages.
In 2001, Catherine Lockerbie, the Book Festival’s fifth director, took the Festival to a
new level by developing highprofile debates and discussions series that are now one
of the Festival’s hallmarks. Each year, writers from all over the world gather to
become part of this unique forum, in which audience and author meet to exchange
thoughts and opinions on some of the world’s most pressing issues. Catherine also
comments on how there appears to be little tension between the commercial and
artistic in terms of the programming: ‘in fact, we have an experimental and willing
audience and they appear willing to buy tickets and books for relatively uncommercial
authors’.
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CEREMONIES AND EVENTS MANAGEMENT. OPERATIONS.

Running alongside the general program is the highly regarded Children’s Programme,
which has grown to become a leading showcase for children’s writers and illustrators.
Incorporating workshops, storytelling, panel discussions, author events and book
signings, the Children’s Programme is popular with both the public and schools alike
and now ranks as the world’s premier books and reading event for young people.
The festival also hosts a Schools Program and a Schools Gala day, exclusively for
schools, the day after the mainstream festival.

This 4day program of author and arts events is the largest of its kind in the world and
is
committed to enabling children to engage in ‘the wonderful world of books ... with the
focus firmly on participation, imagination and creation’ (Karen Mountney, Children’s
Program Director).
The event is non-profit-
making, with a key aim being to improve access and contribute to education and
lifelong learning for Scotland’s school children. To encourage participation, the event
is free for teachers and also provides a free bus fund bringing children to the festival
from all over Scotland. Key events include the School Gala Day, when the book festiv
al is open to schools only; the ‘Outreach Program’, which tours some of the authors to
libraries in Scotland; focused events for teachers, such as ‘Improving Children’s Writin
g Skills’ and ‘Poetry in Primary Years’.

Since its inception, the Book Festival’s home has been the beautiful and historic
Charlotte Square Gardens, centrally located in Edinburgh’s World Heritage listed
Georgian New Town. Each year the gardens are transformed into a magical tented
village, which welcomed 207,500 visitors in 2004.
The Book Festival is proud to run its own independent bookselling operation, with a st
rong publishers’ presence. All proceeds from the sale of books are invested back into t
he running of the book festival, a not-for-
profit charity organisation that annually raises 80% of its own funds.

Festival operations.
Compared with their peers in the United Kingdom and internationally, Edinburgh’s
festivals provide extremely good value to the city. Festivals with the turnover of
Edinburgh’s would expect to receive more in local subsidy. Internationally, public sup
port accounts for approximately 42% of the major European festivals budget, with
smaller festivals receiving about 35% (the Edinburgh International Book
Festival receives 14.9%). The Book Festival, however, is largely funded privately:
Sponsorship and Development 25%, Book Sales 16% and Box Office 41%, with key
public funding bodies being the Scottish Arts Council and the
City of Edinburgh Council (18%). The book festival has developed a strong sponsor bas
e, with the inaugural title sponsors being The Herald/Sunday Herald, five major spons
ors and a series of smaller sponsors and supporters.
In terms of staff structure, the nine senior staff are full-time, year-
round staff; everybody below that is on a temporary contract ranging from six months

CEREMONIES AND EVENTS MANAGEMENT. OPERATIONS.

 to three weeks. At peak times there will up to 90 staff working on the festival, with 15
in the Box Office and 30 Front of House. The Festival has fought hard to retain its
summer seasonal staff by paying them reasonably and offering discounts to the book
shop, catering and entrance to events, in addition to instilling the feeling that they
share ownership of the festival. Retention of staff offers the festival security and adva
nce ment and increases the level of customer service at the event. Target markets.
Edinburgh residents, particularly those profiled as ‘affluent city centre area’ or‘ well off
town and city area’, represent the largest group of visitors to the book festival (46%).
In fact in 2003 79% of visitors were from Scotland, with the remainder from the United
Kingdom and a small proportion (11%) of international visitors. Market research has s
hown that 93% of the audience are ABC1. In terms of demographics, 35% of visitors fal
l into the 35–54 age category, 24% in the 25–
34 age group, 22% in the 55 years plus group and 20% in the 16–24 age category.

Within the local segment, there are several key target markets: the Friends of the
Book Festival, who, as well as being keen supporters and lovers of the festival, also
have a strong fundraising remit; families, who are avid supporters of the Children’s Fes
tival and schools throughout the region. Key issues Maximising quality and experience
on site. A critical issue facing the book festival is managing capacity and visitor experi
ences on the site. The temporary nature of the site (which is erected yearly for the
festival) can bring a host of problems, because all of the facilities have to be brought in
and managed by the book festival. A key issue is obviously climate, because much of
the site’s ambiance is created through its outdoor nature and location. Extremely high
rainfall in 2002 created problems of water logging and flooding. Thankfully, the main
events were unaffected because they are held in huge staged tents; and 2003 thankful
ly experienced a return to sunshine.

Obviously, the site has fixed capacity and in 2004 it experienced visitor numbers of aro
und 11,500 a day; and although over half of the events were sold out, the book festival
sold only 63% of its tickets. A further increase in numbers, therefore, would have an
effect on the provision of facilities such as toilets and food and drink outlets.

Managing author and customer expectations. Critical to the success of the book
festival is the event satisfaction of both authors and customers. Authors are invited to
participate in the festival and pay a nominal and, surprisingly, equal fee. Key benefits
to them include the exposure to their work that the festival brings, the opportunity to
meet with their readers and sign books and have access to international media who
are present at the festival. Also, because of the controversial nature of events such
as ‘East and West’ and ‘Imprisoned Writers’, there are security and political issues
around certain authors’ presence. Thankfully, due to sound relationships with the poli
ce and the presence of a security firm on site, there have been no disruptions to the
festival.
Customer expectations also have to be managed. In 2003 tickets could be bought
online for the first time and in 2004, 21% of tickets were sold via the Book Festival we
bsite; this was seen to be a key improvement in ticket purchasing. Customer feedback
is sought from the event in the form of a questionnaire at the information desks and in
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vited email responses. Feedback from key stakeholders, such as the media and the sp
onsors, is also examined because they are invited to various corporate hospitality even
ts throughout the duration of the festival. Improving access. A key aim of the Festival
is to improve access. Recent research found that the 18–25-year-
old market was the most under-
represented and as this group would be the future lifeblood of the Festival, research w
as undertaken in 2003 to examine strategies of how to increase the market share of th
is key market.

Another issue is improving access from the more deprived areas of Edinburgh.
The Schools Programme is aiming to do this for the family market. The move in 2000
to abolish the entry fee and make the site accessible to all, is another step nearer to so
cial inclusion. The presence of more commercial authors such as Candace Bushnell
of ‘Sex and the City’ fame alongside more radical thinkers such as Susan Sontag, is
also instrumental in widening audience participation. Collaborative working. Pooling
and maximising resources has been seen as a critical way forward for Edinburgh’s key
festivals. Although informal networking and sharing of ideas and practices had
commonly been practised, this was formalised in 2001 with the launch of the
Edinburgh Festivals Strategy. The strategy recognised the need for a shared vision,
which the
City of Edinburgh Council, the various festivals and other interested parties could sign
up to with a common plan of action. The Strategy Implementation Group holds
responsibility for the implementation and monitoring of the Festivals Strategy Action
Plan. The Action Plan is critical because it addresses recommendations, implementati
on partners, timescales and resource implications. Paul Gudgin, Director of the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe, comments that ‘it is helping to foster closer working relatio
nships across many of their departments and between all the festivals and a number
of other key agencies’ (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2002).
Cross-
festival collaboration has resulted in improvements in the following areas: the incepti
on of the Association of Edinburgh’s Festivals joint festivals website www.edinburghf
estivals.co.uk the appointment of a Tourism Travel Press Officer for Edinburgh’s sum
mer festivals production of a daily guide to the festivals, sponsored by The Guardian
newspaper production of an Advocacy document for the festival
multistaffing of the festivals. Conclusion The Edinburgh International Book Festival is
an excellent case study illustrating the process involved in creating and implementing
the event concept. The world’s largest celebration of the written word in 2004 feature
d more than 550 authors appearing at over 650 events, with contributors as diverse as
Muriel Spark, Irvine Welsh and Michael Buerk. The Book Festival is increasingly being
seen as a marketable commodity and there are obvious tensions between artistic
programming and commercialisation. However, the continued success of the Book
Festival is evident and, as Catherine Lockerbie, Director says, ‘The Book Festival is
bringing the rest of the world to us to engage in wider debate. A good thing’.

CEREMONIES AND EVENTS MANAGEMENT. OPERATIONS.

For further information about Edinburgh International Book Festival, please visit
www.edbookfest.co.uk.
By Jane Ali-
Knight, Lecturer in Festival and Leisure Management, Napier University, Edin burgh,
based on Edinburgh International Book Festival 2005.

Questions:

1. Tension between artistic programming and commercialisation is a critical

problem for many festivals and events, particularly those with a strong
community base. How can festival and event organisers put in place strategies to
counteract this?

2. What kind of activities can the Edinburgh International Book Festival engage in to
increase participation from the market segment aged 18–25 years?

3. How can customer experience be measured at a festival and event? Discuss three
different techniques that can be used, outlining the strengths and weaknesses of
each approach.

4. Could you design the structure of the team for the Edinburgh international book
festival.

5. Write the Executive Summary of the Events Proposal.

Instructions:

o Your answers should be uploaded on a PDF document through Aula Virtual

before October the 31st.

o It is only necessary to upload one file per group.

o During the first sessions of November, your group could be requested to

present the case study and additional material such as Power Point slides could
be prepared.

CEREMONIES AND EVENTS MANAGEMENT. OPERATIONS.