• last year
Scotsman Daily Bulletin Thursday 20 July
Transcript
00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Thursday. I'm Alan Young, I am
00:04 Deputy Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our ARC's correspondent Brian Ferguson
00:10 to talk through some of the headlines. Hi Brian.
00:13 Good morning.
00:14 Let's have a look at the front page first. And we will meet today on the comments of
00:23 Scotland's Chief Constable, William Livingstone. Yesterday he was talking about Operation Branch
00:29 Form which is the investigation, as I'm sure everyone knows, into SMP finances and he has
00:37 revealed that the investigation has been ongoing for a long time now, has moved beyond the
00:45 initial reports. Much more in today's paper. We picture on the front there the climate
00:53 protesters at Grangemouth halting the tanker before they were taken away by the police.
01:02 And inside today's paper we have two pages looking ahead to the Royal Military Tattoo.
01:12 Brian, which is why you are here. It's difficult to believe it's only two weeks away before
01:18 the festival of madness starts in Edinburgh.
01:21 Hard to believe and terrifying at the same time. Anyone that takes a walk around the
01:26 Edinburgh city centre will notice a big difference from even a few weeks ago. There's all kinds
01:31 of venues popping up all over town. The Tattoo arena has been there for a few weeks. They
01:39 had some big concerts earlier this month, the Who and Rose Stewart among them. But the
01:46 really big one that's going to be on there for three weeks is the Tattoo. It's the second
01:49 year of its comeback after Covid that was off for a couple of years. They have a really
01:57 interesting guy. They had a bit of a reorganisation during Covid. They have appointed a creative
02:04 director for the first time. A guy from New Zealand who has an incredible track record
02:10 of working with the Muppets, Harry Potter, Boris Johnson, he was involved in the London
02:16 Olympics, he was involved in a big festival. Lego is also on his CV. He's a really intriguing
02:25 guy. He's really interested in Celtic and Scottish culture. He has basically been charged
02:31 with doing quite a tricky job, keeping the essence of the Tattoo and everything that
02:38 people associate with it. Particularly, it's got a very strong repeat audience. There's
02:43 maybe a bit of undervaluing in the city. A lot of people go on a regular basis. But his
02:48 big task is to try and reinvent it for modern day audiences, particularly in terms of using
02:55 the best available technology for the event. So when I first started going, the whole event
03:01 really was just the performances on the Esplanade, which were brilliant in itself. It's a terrific
03:07 event. They've always had great acts from around the world, brilliant pipe bands. There's
03:12 been so many signature moments. They've always had great music. But they started to use the
03:17 castle itself as a backdrop to have various projections on there. And certainly last year,
03:27 there was a real noticeable difference in the quality of that. He was saying to me that
03:34 they're going to be using a lot more of the castle itself than ever before. There's also
03:41 going to be a real noticeable difference in the sound quality. He was saying there's going
03:45 to be more surround sound speakers so that when you're at the Tattoo, you'll not just
03:51 be hearing the musicians performing, you'll be hearing lots of different effects around
03:55 you. And there's other things as well. Obviously, with the... it might be a hiatus, but it doesn't
04:03 look as if there's going to be any big festival fireworks finale. But if anyone looking for
04:07 the feel of fireworks, they will certainly get that at the Tattoo this year. They've
04:11 got a new pyrotechnics designer, and new people looking after the costumes. It's going to
04:16 be a very different show to a show that people might have seen five or 10 years ago. And
04:23 one of the intriguing elements is the musical... there's tattoos certainly in modern times
04:30 as thrown in the odd contemporary tune, particularly bands from America that come over. They're
04:36 light throwing in the odd colour. I remember a great Michael Jackson thriller sequence
04:40 on the Esplanade not too long ago, and a bit of Taylor Swift. But this year, Michael was
04:46 saying there's going to be a Lizzo song, there's going to be an old classic from Kool and the
04:50 Gang, and a hit from the 80s by the band Yellow. It was a Swiss band, there's going to be a
04:57 Swiss band performing their track, The Race. But another really intriguing element is towards
05:04 the end of the show, and they did this to an extent last year with a track by a band,
05:10 Skippin' Ish. They're one of the really big, many big Scottish bands who are now capable
05:17 of selling out big outdoor shows, headlining festivals and playing venues like the Barrowlands
05:23 and the Arsha Holiday Inn. But they've got another track from a band called Tidelines
05:27 who just sold out a massive big talk show in Glasgow. They've got one of their big songs
05:35 coming at the end of the show, as well as a track by Runrig from their last album, The
05:42 Story. So those, it's really intriguing the way that the, I mean, it pains to point out
05:48 that all the elements that people will expect in the Tattoo will still be there, but they're
05:53 trying to bring in different elements and really kind of have a different theme of the
05:59 year as well, so that maybe if somebody came to the show last year, there'd be maybe more
06:04 of a reason for them to come again. And again, next year, there'll be another theme. So this
06:10 year's theme is stories. It's very kind of a wide ranging theme. There'll be the story
06:17 of different stories drawn from different countries. So it'll be quite a bit, you know,
06:22 drawing back into Caribbean heritage and also, you know, stories, you know, I think the Swiss
06:29 band is playing, it's going to have a big William Tell sequence in their appearance.
06:34 But there'll be a kind of a lot of, there'll be a big element about, you know, the way
06:39 that Scottish culture has kind of influenced different cultures around the world and also
06:45 travelled around the world as well. And obviously that should resonate, I would imagine, very
06:49 strongly with the audience. You are very much a mixed audience. I think people assume that
06:55 the tattoo is very much dominated by visitors to the UK. But my experience of going is it's
07:04 a very, very mixed audience from Scotland, the UK and overseas, basically.
07:08 And you mentioned at the start, it's the second year of the recovery, if you like, from COVID
07:15 right. The other big challenge, I guess, for organising the tattoo and the festival in
07:22 general is the cost of living. Not just here, but abroad as well, affecting tourism. How
07:32 are ticket sales looking at this point? Historically, it was an event that always sold out.
07:40 Yeah, it was actually beginning to shift a little bit before the pandemic. I think they
07:46 had a bit of an issue where, and other festivals have suffered from this to an extent, is that
07:51 people maybe assume that it's all going to completely sold out. And I think, you know,
07:55 before the pandemic, it was possible to get tickets quite late on, especially on the day,
08:00 you know, the travel trade would buy a lot of tickets and then return them. So now, they're
08:04 doing really well, they are ahead of where they want to be. So they say, you know, they've
08:10 sold 80% of tickets for the show. Interestingly, a lot of those tickets that sell are the most
08:17 expensive tickets and the most expensive packages with some of the best views of the castle.
08:23 I haven't been there, there's not really a dove view of the castle when you go there.
08:28 But there are, you know, just like people know that, you know, if people want to book
08:32 tickets for a tattoo, now it is possible to go to just about, I had a look yesterday,
08:36 it's possible to go to just about any performance at the moment. So there's good availability.
08:41 Obviously, the tricky thing for the city and the festivals is, you know, the sheer cost
08:47 of accommodation, if anyone looking late in the day, there are ways around that, obviously,
08:53 particularly, the further you go from the city centre and also outwith the city, it
08:58 becomes a bit easier. A tattoo certainly has at least one early show at the weekend that
09:05 starts at half past six. So it's perfectly possible to come in for a day out in Edinburgh,
09:11 go to an early performance and then get home again, or, you know, stay somewhere outside
09:17 either the city or the city centre. But yeah, I mean, you know, across the festival landscape,
09:23 the festivals are returning this year and last year in really big form compared to what
09:28 they were like, you know, pre-COVID. The great uncertainty this year, I suppose, is, you
09:34 know, what will the audience demand be like? I think the indications are, I would think,
09:40 that things are looking as if it will be certainly very busy and busier than last year. Whether
09:45 everyone meets their targets, of course, depends on what their individual targets are. There's
09:50 certainly, I can't see any way that the city is not going to be extremely busy. I think
09:54 an intriguing element for me is how many people, and I wonder if this is more the case than
10:01 before, how many people booked to come to Edinburgh in August without really knowing
10:06 what's going to be on in the city when they arrive and whether a lot of that accommodation
10:13 is now booked up in advance. But I had a look this morning, it's very difficult to get anything
10:17 at all in the city centre and anything in Edinburgh. You're talking for a two night
10:22 stay upwards of four or five hundred pounds basically for a hotel. And even that's some
10:28 distance outside the city centre. But, you know, I'm just back from the Highlands and
10:31 Islands, you're looking at those kind of prices to go pretty much anywhere in Scotland for
10:36 a hotel. So I think people should remember is that once you arrive in Edinburgh, you
10:42 know, if you're coming in by public transport, it's all pretty, the whole festival is pretty
10:46 accessible on foot to walk around. You know, you've got hundreds of venues basically within
10:52 walking distance of Waverley station, including the Tattoo Esplanade itself. It's all pretty
11:00 accessible. Like I say, it's still possible to buy tickets for the Tattoo at the moment.
11:07 Busy few weeks coming up for you, I'm sure. Thanks very much for talking us through all
11:11 that. Brian, please keep an eye on scottsman.com throughout the day where we'll have all the
11:15 very latest news and do subscribe if you can, then you will not miss a thing. If you're
11:20 out and about today, please do also pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Brian.
11:25 It's by far the best.
11:25 [END]