Summary
THE Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Nicolson Street has been around in one form or another since 1830. Its auditorium is an exotic collision of art nouveau and neo-classicism. Colin Ross's bold glass exterior, added in 1994, turns the theatre into an event in itself, revealing the crowds swimming around inside like exotic fish in a giant tank. When it is illuminated, that is. This year, every time I have passed the theatre on my way to Edinburgh Festival shows, the building has been dark. The lights seem to have gone out. Performances have taken place there - seven of them - but judging by the venue's appearance, you wouldn't know there was a festival going on at all.
It's the same across Edinburgh. We are told, repeatedly, that this is the biggest arts festival in the world; yet Edinburgh goes to remarkable lengths to conceal the fact.See the full content of this document
Extract
Why Edinburgh Risks Ruining the World's Best Festival
Despite the best summer weather the city has enjoyed in years, the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens is dead and sad.
Princes Street itself is decked out as usual with cheap shopfronts and "Sale" signs.There are no flags, no celebrations, nothing to remind you that - right here, right now - you are in the midst of the greatest concentration of cultural capital on the planet.The marketing world has a name for civic salesmanship. It's called "dressing the city".In this context, Edinburgh should be dubbed the naked city - it certainly hasn't put its glad rags on. Even the ...See the full content of this document
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