Introduction

While the City of Edinburgh plays host to some twenty festivals each year and an increasing number of one-off events, this case study will focus on the Winter Festival, comprising Edinburgh's Capital Christmas and Edinburgh's Hogmanay. This case study considers from a practitioner rather than an academic perspective the Winter Festival and associated events in relation to the key theme of 'ensuring a balance between entrepreneurial activity and long-term public sector development strategy'. The following areas will be addressed:

• A history of the Winter Festival events

• The evolution of the Winter Festival events in relation to the marketplace

• Funding of the Winter Festival and the challenges of commercial viability and sustainability.

This chapter should be read in conjunction with Chapter 8.

Background to Edinburgh's Winter Festival

Scotland has always celebrated the passing of the old year and the emergence of the new with both heartfelt passion and, for a great many of the younger generations, barely contained revelry. Such is the significance of this event for Scotland that it has its own name, Hogmanay. A derivation of a seventeenth-century Norman French term meaning 'New Year's Eve gift', the name reflects the celebratory significance of the event. This significance is known throughout the western world, and increasingly around the globe. The emergence in 1993 of Edinburgh's Hogmanay festival has been followed by a meteoric rise in importance. So while Germany, Austria and Holland do have a history of holding winter festivals...