A stooshie over Edinburgh's cancelled Hogmanay celebration
It came without fireworks or Texas or Gluhwein
The cancellation of “Edinburgh’s Hogmanay” made international news. Yet the weather on New Year’s Eve wasn’t that bad in the city. It was about 8C, there was a moderate breeze and it wasn’t even raining.
For fear of snowflakes - or made by them?
A wee stooshie has been ongoing ever since. Was the call-off down to the fear of snowflakes - or made by them?
Local author Irvine Welsh said it was “crazy” and blamed “fleecing bedwetters”. He called for the cancellation of all future commercial Hogmanay events and demanded the streets be given back to the people.
Stephen Jardine in The Scotsman wrote that the decision was “predictable given the event’s scale and the obsession with trying to remove any risk from every situation”.
Punters on the event’s social media pages noted that the city’s Winterfest operated as normal on Dec 31 until 10 pm, asking questions like:
“How come it was too windy for Texas to play but OK for the flying tower to spin people round on ropes 80 metres up in the air?”
One response was that this was because the fairground attractions are run by “commonsense people, not snowflakes from the Edinburgh arts scene who are sat around eating Mung beans and shouting angrily at Nigel Farage.”
There were cancellations elsewhere - but some places held on. The city of Stirling normally has a council-funded celebration. But they have retrenched and this year’s fireworks display was organised by Stirling Rugby Club. It went ahead at the Wallace Monument, though Stirling Council warned people not to come into town to view it, and Stirling Castle - arguably even more magnificent and historic than Edinurgh’s - closed its doors early to visitors.
Thousands gathered in Stonehaven, near Aberdeen, for a procession where people swung huge fireballs on long ropes around their heads, accompanied by a pipeband. That too seemed to go off without incident.
A long list of events going ahead in Glasgow was shared on social media by someone who commented acidly that Edinburgh has a bit of a cheek calling itself “the home of Hogmanay” at the best of times.
So who made the decision to cancel and why?
Most news reports blamed weather warnings that were in place in Scotland for New Year’s Eve. When I contacted the Met Office, they said there was no amber warning for Edinburgh that night and the yellow wind warning only covered the northern edge of the city, not the centre. They denied that any weather forecasts had been scaled down or were inaccurate.
Alan Thomson, Managing Director of the organisers Unique Events was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland. He explained that the real problem was the weather on Dec 30 and the forecast for the morning of Dec 31. Unique’s team were unable to construct the temporary infrastructure that supports the events - the performance stages and the 15-foot fences that control access to Princes St.
Thomson explained that the decision to cancel was taken by the leadership of Edinburgh Council and the emergency services, along with the Unique management. That puts the current leader of Edinburgh Council in the frame.
Jane Meagher is a bit of an unknown quantity. She has only been in place for a few weeks after a small scandal involving the city’s own pound shop version of Casablanca. The previous head Cammy Day had to resign after being accused of behaving a bit like Louis Renault, the police chief in the movie who tries to take advantage of refugees fleeing war-torn Europe. Day was accused of sending over-friendly messages on social media to young male Ukrainian refugees.
Consequently, we don’t know much about Meagher - but she apparently told the Daily Mail yesterday that she looks forward to a time when fireworks are replaced by silent laser lights that don’t upset pets.
Who loses out?
Edinburgh’s “Hogmanay” is paid for by £800,000 from Edinburgh Council which goes to Unique Events and has obviously already been spent. It is not clear yet who will have to stump up for the refunds or whether sub-contractors - people running food and drink stalls and so on - will get anything back on their site fees. Some people travelled thousands of miles to attend - BBC Scotland spoke to Richard and Amber Newton who saved for five years to come over from Atlanta, Georgia, with their teenage children. They didn’t manage to find another event despite wandering around the city for hours and brought in the bells with a glass of warm Prosecco in their hotel room.
Could they have gone with a smaller event?
Some asked why Edinburgh didn’t go with a scaled-back event - cancelling the street party but keeping the fireworks, which may already have been in place. The display is visible all over town not just from Princes St. Families with children who can’t go to the pubs and parties dress up warm and go to parks and viewpoints like Calton Hill.
But the event organisers were clearly worried about attracting crowds to Princes St without the access gates and 15 foot fences in place - they even told people to avoid the town centre unless attending an indoor event. That call caused further anger
SNP Councillor Finlay McFarlane said that a commercial operator to “ask folk to stay away from City Centre is an outrage.”
(Edinburgh Council is currently held by a loose coalition of the three Unionist parties)
New Orleans, London’s West End, Magdeburg - the times have changed
It is true that Edinburgh used to host large crowds at Hogmanay without fences or tickets - when I was young people would gather in the centre of town, celebrate the bells around the Tron Kirk and wander between pubs, parties and howfs the whole night long.
But times have changed. Over the festive period, three western cities - Magdeburg, London, and New Orleans are mourning the deaths of revellers caused by vehicles driven into them at high speed. It would be irresponsible to attract crowds without a workable plan to protect their safety. We are all going to have to get used to increased security at street events.
Most people made the best of the situation
There are worse things in life than cancelled fireworks. Some places benefitted - the Pitt market has recently moved to a new location in Granton and might have seemed a bit far away under normal conditions but its Hogmanay party was a sell-out. Bars, clubs and restaurants with late licences were busy. People wandered down Victoria Steet and into the Grassmarket, along the Cowgate and elsewhere across the centre. Some hopped on the tram to Leith where the ships blast their foghorns at the bells. Some like “Jessica” from Belgium - hooked up with others in the same situation and found spots in cosy bars - and spent the evening, as Burns put it, “Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, wi reaming swats that drank divinely”.
At the bells, we found ourselves on a street corner sharing a packet of sparklers and a few verses of Auld Lang Syne with some old friends and a couple of young journalists from Berlin we met in a bar. (When I texted my friend what to bring to her place earlier she had answered ‘some disappointed tourists) It seemed a pretty good substitute for the official event. “It was so fun” one of our new friends texted later. Just like in the story “How the Grinch stole Christmas” - the absence of glitz and gunpowder didn’t kill the Hogmanay spirit.