A month-long celebration of Local Hero has been axed after the director announced huge losses.
Andrew Mellon came up with the idea of marking the 40th anniversary of the beloved comedy drama, which was filmed in north-east, across May.
He started off by spending £4,000 on a garden in the heart of Banff, with its own boat suspended overhead, to promote the project.
“I don’t do things on the cheap,” he told us today.
What was planned for doomed celebration?
Among the ambitious programme of events were walking tours, to take place from May 6 to May 27, along with a month-long Local Hero exhibition.
Screening rooms had been set up in a closed bank to show 150 movies in what was billed as an “international film festival”.
However, for rights reasons, the Bill Forsyth movie being commemorated was not on the list.
Mr Mellon had even secured the rights to use the film’s soundtrack from Dire Straits legend Mark Knopfler, with a concert series pencilled in for this Saturday and Sunday at Duff House.
He teamed up with a local distillery to release bottles of whisky marking the movie’s anniversary.
And a pair of ceilidhs were planned for the nights of Saturday May 20 and May 27, with tickets for each priced at £35.
Other attractions ranged from a rabbit pie competition to Local Hero-themed Mastermind and Antiques Roadshow events.
A “Northern Lights experience”, said to have cost £25,000 to organise, was to take place to mark the culmination on May 28.
A separate “Local Hero Weekender” planned by the council, with events restricted to just a few days, is still going ahead.
Mr Mellon and other organisers toasted the launch at the start of April:
Dire straits for cancelled Local Hero festival
But the Banff-based 54-year-old has now abandoned the festival.
He explained that he and a business partner decided to “seize the moment” after learning Aberdeenshire Council wasn’t going to such lengths to mark the milestone.
Mr Mellon claims to have ploughed £45,000 into the event.
But he imagined it would all pay off in the end, with the proceeds going towards the purchase of the town’s former Royal Bank of Scotland building and neigbouring M and Co.
These, he would then turn into social enterprises.
Meanwhile, a trust would also be formed to turn the festival into an annual event.
Organisers had banked on selling between 20,000 and 30,000 wristbands, entitling the owners to discounts.
Priced at £2 each, they would immediately claw back anything from £40,000 to £60,000…
Mr Mellon danced through Banff barefoot to promote the festival:
As Banff & Macduff welcomes the world to the Banffshire Coast, our Festival Director Andrew, struts his stuff around Local Hero HQ and all the wonderful sites our local community has on its doorstep! Check out those moves! 🕺#LocalHero #LocalHerofestival #BluePrintforBritian pic.twitter.com/GnuU0qaZx9
— Local Hero Festival (@Local_Hero_Fest) May 10, 2023
Festival axed after locals stay away
But all that has now been scrapped.
A statement released this afternoon announces the end of the festival eight days early.
And it says Mr Mellon is “facing a £25,000 loss on top of his original £20,000 seed cash”.
It goes on: “Local residents have stayed away with just 4% attending the exhibition or a festival event, but the festival has attracted some 2,000 out of town visitors.
“All tickets for the 14 cancelled events are being refunded.”
Even free ice cream couldn’t generate support
When we spoke to Mr Mellon this evening, he revealed that even the promise of free ice cream wasn’t enough to pique locals’ interest.
The despairing entrepreneur arranged a give-away of 500 tubs of Rizzla’s in the town centre on Saturday – but only 12 tubs were scooped up.
Mr Mellon added: “Something is very very wrong. I can’t believe there has been this kind of disconnect with the locals.
“So I made a massive judgment call, I had to cut my losses.
“Our sales for the weekend were just £6. That was the wake up call for me.
“I couldn’t commit another £25,000 to try and make this work. The people of Banff and Macduff just don’t want it.”
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What now for Local Hero festival?
Mr Mellon blasted tourism agencies for failing to promote the event “bringing something new and exciting and different to Aberdeenshire”.
The businessman says a documentary filmmaker brought on board to capture the five-week festival has now found “a very different story”.
The private chef now aims to spend a few months cooking to recoup the Local Hero festival losses.
The celebration will close on Saturday at 5pm, when the exhibition shuts its doors for the final time.
Screenings planned by Aberdeenshire Council to mark the anniversary are still taking place.
Read more about those events here.
Conversation