£116m Brexit festival saw just a fraction of visitors and income predicted

theguardian.com:

At a cost of £116.8m to the taxpayer, the Unboxed science and arts festival was supposed to bring the UK together in a post-Brexit love-fest and enhance our international reputation – to “showcase what makes our country great today”.

The final evaluation, however, has found that the festival, commissioned by Theresa May in 2018 and christened a “festival of Brexit” by Jacob Rees-Mogg, brought together a fraction of the audiences hoped for and generated a fraction of the financial benefit that was predicted.

From March to December 2022, 10 Unboxed commissions ran in 107 locations around the UK. In commissioning the events, emphasis was placed on live, highly accessible events that would reach a wide range of individuals and communities. Digital and broadcast activities were also prioritised.

Ministers predicted that the UK economy would enjoy a £170m windfall as a result of the festival. In fact, the evaluation discovered, the festival brought less than £20m of additional spending across Britain.

In contrast to early prediction of 66 million visitors, it turns out that fewer than 20.5 million people engaged with one of the Unboxed activities over the eight months of the festival, either in person, digitally or through broadcasts.

“At its core, Unboxed aimed to bring people together,” the Festival 2022 Ltd evaluation said. But it findings show that just 2.74 million people went to a live event – 2 million in England, 300,000 in Northern Ireland, about 34,000 in Wales and 400,000 in Scotland.

More people engaged remotely – 15.86 million – either digitally or through broadcasts. But it has been pointed out that this number includes those watching a special edition of the BBC programme Countryfile, which included a 15-minute