The taxpayer-funded £120 million arts festival known as the “Festival of Brexit” has seen just 238,000 visitors attend, falling well short of the organisers’ targets.
Unboxed – the government-sponsored, post-Brexit programme of arts events – had set a “stretch target” of 66 million attendees, which means the actual figure of number visitors is just 0.36 per cent of the most hopeful target.
It was also more than four times the cost of the celebrations to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The revelation comes in an investigation by The House magazine, published today.
Remainer plot
But who is to blame?
According to the Mail, it failed due to a remainer plot.
Their headline reads: “Fury as £120million arts festival to celebrate Brexit becomes a ‘pro-Remain flop’ – amid claims ‘staff refused to take part if the UK’s exit from the EU was mentioned’.”
Now Unboxed organisers have now criticised the politicisation of the events, with director Martin Green, saying had been “unfortunate” that the “Festival of Brexit” tag had stuck.
However, Jacob Rees-Mogg had characterised it as a “festival of Brexit”, after a previous version of its branding the event was known as “Festival UK* 2022”, so that might explain how the tag stuck.
Green insisted that Nadine Dorries was a fan.
She “absolutely loved” Dream machine, an immersive group hallucination in south-east London.
Reactions
The news that it failed seems to have shocked nobody and we can’t find anyone who went, or at least admit it!
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Or simply this?