With the aim of continuously attracting new visitors to the region, Dumfries and Galloway Council has ploughed £275,000 into organising big name festivals and tournaments over the past 17 years.
The seven signature events are Big Burns Supper, the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival, Spring Fling, the Wigtown Book Festival, the Tour of Britain in Dumfries and Galloway, World Championship Ice Hockey tournaments and the Scottish Rally.
It is being proposed that another £275,000 is invested into events in 2022/23 to grow tourism, and plans are also being drawn up to reduce the carbon footprint of festivals and events.
A report on the council’s events strategy for the next five years is due to be tabled at the communities committee next Thursday.
It reads: “For the period 2005-2022 council funding for festivals and events has remained constant at £275,000 per annum.
“The economic, cultural, sporting and media returns from this public investment increased year on year until the outbreak of Covid-19. The introduction of the signature events programme has been positively supported by our events partnership, national partners and the events sector locally.
“We are committed to working with our partners to explore opportunities to grow the number of signature events and the subsequent funding required to support this.
“Festivals and events need to be much more environmentally conscious during this decade – the climate crisis demands nothing less than a forensic focus on the negative impacts of planning and delivering events.
“We will prepare and launch Scotland’s first Greener Events Toolkit in 2023, to help our professional and voluntary sector events organisations understand how they can reduce their carbon footprint and build long term environmental, social and economic sustainability.”
