2024 Festival £1m Economic Impact - Lammermuir Festival
“A jewel of a festival”
Daily Telegraph
“Miniature miracles are what East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival specialises in… concerts featuring top rank artists in implausible venues, so that every September the union of great music and beautiful locations creates a peculiarly special atmosphere.”
Bachtrack
The 15th Lammermuir Festival in 2024 was a landmark worth celebrating and, thanks to the tremendous support provided by our many donors and funders, we were thrilled to be able to mark it in the way we know best – by inviting 300 of the world’s finest musicians to perform great music in our beautiful, historic county.
Not only was the festival considered an artistic success, by audiences and critics alike, but the economic impact of the 2024 Festival to East Lothian was independently assessed as £1.1m, up 23% compared to 2023 (source: MKA Economics).
The festival offered 37 performances including adding in a second performance of Tenebrae’s Path of Miracles at the Concorde Hangar of the Museum of Flight due to audience demand.
We were honoured that the incomparable Véronique Gens agreed to sing for us, and were also delighted to present Scottish Opera’s staging of Britten’s Albert Herring in the perfect setting of the newly re-opened Corn Exchange in Haddington.
Concerto Copenhagen, one of the finest baroque orchestras in the world, joined us as Ensemble in Residence with four performances and the brilliant young Van Baerle Trio from Holland played all of Beethoven’s piano trios through our weekday morning Coffee Concerts.
The brand new Valo String Quartet partnered with the extraordinary Jeremy Denk who also contributed two more typically striking programmes, including an amazing Charles Ives event with violinist Maria Wloszczowska and a band.
“The Charles Ives birthday concert, which could only have been mounted at a top-flight community-based festival was a highlight. The contributions from the community choir and concert band added context and greatly added to the understanding of the sonatas. It was an unforgettable concert.”
Audience member
Our devotion to JS Bach was undimmed, with Fretwork playing The Art of Fugue and Roman Rabinovich the ‘Goldberg Variations’.
Gesualdo Six gave two performances which were highlights for many:
“I have always striven for perfection… I thought it was a forlorn hope and an unreachable goal. However, after this concert in Our Lady of Loretto Church, Musselburgh, given by The Gesualdo Six I think I may have glimpsed it! A fabulous concert.”
Edinburgh Music Review
ZRI gave us a Lammermuir Journey with brilliant re-scoring of three well-known works in three of the county’s most historic churches: “just the kind of visionary project that East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival consistently pulls off so well.”
The Scotsman
Dunedin Consort performed with Alexander Chance in Crichton Collegiate Church and our friends the Maxwell Quartet and Hebrides Ensemble returned to the festival.
Our closing performance by the Royal Northern Sinfonia was a fitting culmination of a festival described as:
“Outstanding in every way. From the quality of the music-making to the helpfulness of the volunteers and from the beautiful venues to the excellent organisation, it was one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve ever had.”
Audience member
Lammermuir Festival 2024 on the BBC
The Lammermuir Festival was featured on Front Row with an interview of Jeremy Denk by Kirsty Wark; and the Van Baerle Trio performed live and were interviewed on Radio 3’s In Tune. The reach of the festival was greatly enhanced with broadcasts from St Mary’s Haddington of all four of Concerto Copenhagen’s performances on Radio 3.
This included Georg Muffat’s 340-year-old Armonico Tributo:
“An evening of music by an unknown composer is a risk, but this was totally persuasive and really rather lovely. And aren’t discoveries like this supposed to be what festivals are about?”
Seen & Heard International
Extending the reach of the Lammermuir Festival
In addition to the series of concerts presented each September, Lammermuir Festival is committed to engaging with children and young people from across East Lothian. Three highly successful community operas have been staged over the years. 2016: Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde; 2018: An Cadal Trom by Matthew Rooke, commissioned by Lammermuir Festival; 2022-23: Catriona and the Dragon composed by Lliam Paterson and writer-director Laura Attridge, and involving over 1,700 community members.
This year we launched a new initiative, Front Row, an audience development programme supported by SCOPS Arts Trust. We worked with schools across East Lothian to reach young people aged 13-17, inviting them to attend events, meet artists and see behind the scenes. 52 young people from eight schools attended the festival, bringing greater diversity to our audience and exceptional experiences for those involved.
Comments from the young people:
“I loved being at the concert! Meeting some of the performers was amazing! Everyone was so nice and friendly!”
“It contributed to my learning of my instrument – I’m now looking at tango pieces on piano and guitar, and I also learnt the Mendelssohn Wedding March on piano. It made me want to attend future classical music concerts… I definitely want to attend the festival next year…speaking to experts in such a professional setting definitely boosted my confidence.”
Lammermuir Festival audience 2024
Our festival is rooted in the community and supported by a loyal and engaged audience, many of whom return annually to the festival from near and far. Lammermuir Festival 2024 welcomed over 7,000 attendances, an increase of 13% on 2023 and the most visitors in its history.
72% of our audience came from Edinburgh and the Lothians and 28% from elsewhere in Scotland, rest of UK and abroad. This shows a slight increase in the proportion of bookers from outside East Lothian, particularly drawing audiences from Edinburgh.
Once again, we achieved a truly remarkable 99% audience satisfaction level in our annual post-festival audience survey and overwhelmingly positive written feedback including:
“Well done to all those who keep this wonderful festival going.”
“This is a great festival, and is rapidly becoming the pre-eminent festival in Scotland, eclipsing all others. We really wouldn’t want to change anything about it.”
“I think the planning and execution of the concerts were masterly. The performers were world class; the programme was balanced; the concert venues were varied. The stewarding was exemplary, with personable, helpful and competent stewards to direct parking and disabled access – Thanks to everyone involved.”
“All concert programmes have been superlative – the musicians have been without doubt of the very highest level. In our view this Festival not only makes an invaluable contribution to the cultural life of East Lothian – but on talking with others, its value covers a much wider geographical range. We are aware of several concert goers who come every year from Paris, France as well as New Zealand and the USA. Full praise indeed for musicians, directors, funding agencies and all other supporters including volunteers.”
Thank you to our wonderful volunteers
Supporting the Lammermuir Festival
We are enormously grateful to our audiences, volunteers, the members of the Friends of Lammermuir Festival and all our generous funders. This year, 43% of the cost of the festival was met by fundraising from the private sector, with an additional 39% from ticket and programme sales and broadcast fees. Fundraising income included increased income from trusts and foundations and benefactors, and sponsorship from McInroy & Wood. We are also delighted to have grown our Friends membership by 66%.
Following a difficult 2023 we were pleased to have been successful in our application to Creative Scotland for renewed funding for the 2024 and 2025 festivals. However, public funding represents an ever-diminishing slice of our funding and cannot be assured in the future. We believe that our continuing success will depend as never before upon support from our family of private sector supporters, donors and volunteers.
Please do consider supporting us by becoming a Friend, purchasing a Gift Membership or by making a donation.
Thank you.
Tenebrae Path of Miracles at the Concorde Hangar, Museum of Flight:
“This sensationally beautiful meditation on pilgrimage seemed to shimmer in the air around Concorde as the choir moved through the vast space, creating pinpricks of sound that coalesced and separated in a way that brought the piece’s spiritual message to sublime, pulsating life . . . It’s for implausible things like this, and for the moments of transcendence which they bring, that we fund the arts as a public good. Somebody please tell the government.”
The Times
Lammermuir Festival 2025: 4 – 15 September 2025
Plans are already underway to deliver another fabulous festival in 2025 and we are looking forward to sharing these with you in due course.
Photographs: Stuart Armitt
