National Event Strategy review and refresh - Scotland: the perfect stage

We note that the strategy is based round 'The perfect stage'. We would argue that Scotland has a world-class 'marine stage' that shows off Scotland's natural environment at its best.

Events that we encourage or directly support range from club races and open days to national competitions and marine festivals. We are partners in the process that led to Giant Strides, the Scottish Marine Tourism Strategy with its four strategic themes:
Our waters: clean and blue;
Our experiences: authentic and seamless;
Our businesses: profitable and sustainable;
Our people and communities: valued and healthy.

No comment.

For RYA Scotland, events have been one of the key channels for us to get together with members, affiliates and wider partners.

These external events have been wrapped into the communications role with regard to Scotland’s Boat Show and “Sail for Gold” Olympic support events. Additionally, events allow us to promote the raft of race training and coaching ‘events’ that are taking place throughout Scotland. Covid had an obvious effect in recent years on our annual events cycle.

Affiliates host a number of cruise or flotilla events each year; examples include The Classic Malts Cruise and Traditional Boat Festivals. These are often based on aspects of Scotland such as food and drink, culture and music. Community wellbeing is best served by entry-level and intermediate sporting events in dinghies such as Optimists, Toppers, Lasers etc. At national level a small number of destinations, such as the Championship venue in Largs, have the capacity to accommodate large numbers of participants.

RYA Scotland provides various levels of support for affiliates, from volunteer management, race officials and equipment, previously partly administered by the Scottish Sailing Institute. Participants at sporting events require additional personnel and technical resources for excellent event experiences, beyond those on offer through cruising musters and bespoke coastal festivals.

There is a wide variety of events with different aims, costs and locations. Thus we are unable to generalise about the four aspects of question 6.

We feel that for our members the key issues are cost, the timing and coordination of events with much happening in the middle of the relatively short period of time that is the sailing season and, increasingly, the carbon cost of attending events. The challenge is to identify events that can extend the season or take place out of season. The Kip boat show in October was such an event but it did not run in 2022 and its future status is unclear. Another problem is that due to work commitments people find it more difficult to take part in multi-day events such as the West Highland Yachting Week and the Scottish Series as they can take up a significant portion of annual leave. Innovative thinking on the duration and timing of the event can mitigate this.

The best way of doing this should be by increasing the involvement of the communities who will be impacted by the event. It is important to recognise that many events are already organised effectively by local communities and clubs with some targeted at local people and others more widely by visitors. We feel that communication between the event organisers and local bodies such as Business Improvement Districts is the key to success.

For national competitive sailing events, a key requirement is access to race management expertise, equipment, technical support and coordination of volunteers. Such national racing events used to be organised by the now defunct Scottish Sailing Institute (SSI) in Largs, which is a recognised championship venue. SSI was a partnership of sportscotland ( Cumbrae / Inverclyde ); North Ayrshire Council, Largs Sailing Club and Largs Yacht Haven with a remit to attract national and international level events to Scotland. At the peak in 2007 there were two full time staff and there were 2-3 national level events annually, including World and European championships. The loss of this resource and that of Cumbrae has had a serious adverse impact on competitive events that require significant human and technical resources.

Outwith competitive events, the Commonwealth Flotilla in 2014 makes an interesting case study. It targeted the yacht cruising community and linked to the Commonwealth Games. It was widely perceived as a great success with a lot of positive feedback both from participants and spectators. Thousands of people were attracted to watch the event from the river banks. RYA Scotland was also responsible for those people on the water; their wastes and berthing ashore and the wider safety management of spectators, which was one of the biggest associated costs. The risks and costs of this were perhaps underestimated at the time. Fundamentally, the size and location of events on the water is limited by the availability of sufficient well-trained volunteers, infrastructure such as cranes, large slipways, berths and support vessels which are often located only in sufficient number in a few localities. Therefore, further limitations are the distance a boat has to travel to an event and the time it takes to get there, and insurance for boats and the organising team.

The majority of the events with which we are involved depend on volunteers and it is important to provide conditions that encourage them to return. We are unable to comment about commercially organised events or the involvement of commercial organisations supporting events (e.g. hospitality and catering).

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We can only comment on the events that we are involved with and we like to think that we are doing the best that we can with the volunteer and financial resources available. RYA as an organisation is a leading provider of maritime training programmes – aspects of which provide some of the key skills necessary for supporting maritime events (e.g. race management and safety boat skills). Events also provide a locus for many involved in the marine industry and so opportunities for making contacts and connections in the broader maritime sector.

Many organisers are already aware of the need to become more environmentally sustainable. The financial viability of some events, particularly international ones depends on people travelling long distances to them at a considerable carbon cost. However, there are other environmental impacts including disturbance to wildlife and the introduction of Invasive Non-Native Species. RYA Scotland actively promotes the Green Blue initiative for responsible boating of the RYA and British Marine and has worked with the Sail Caledonia event to draw up biosecurity guidelines.

Events already tap into a range of funding sources both as money and in kind, for infrastructure, resources and expertise Successful marine events are often a collaboration between multiple organisations from the private and public sector who bring a variety of sources of income together under an event to achieve shared goals.

After initial funding from Visit Scotland as part of the Year of Coast and Waters, the Fife Regatta [NB this refers to a type of boat and not a region] in 2020 provided a lot of insight into the scale of reporting and expectations linking tourism and sport. Typically it is the kindness of benefactors and sponsors who prove to be major contributor to getting any event to Scotland.

No comment.

The recently published RYA Scotland impact report (https://issuu.com/ryascotland/docs/ryas_impact_report_yr_1_aw), although not focussed directly on events, may provide a model that could be used for events. The former Scottish Sailing Institute carried out financial impact assessments of major events for North Ayrshire Council considering visitor spend and other metrics.

Scotland's waters and maritime heritage are well-known around the world and appropriate events can only enhance this reputation.

It is important that these benefit local communities and do not adversely affect other users of the water while leaving a legacy for the future.

For marine events we suspect that these are not the main outcomes that drive the organisation but are welcome side-effects. Being more sustainable is, however, increasingly something that needs to be taken into account, for example by adhering to the advice from the Green Blue programme of the RYA and British Marine.

No comment.

Not all events have a uniformly positive effect as they may prevent existing activities taking place. For example, the Duncan Mills slipway at Balloch is closed for safety reasons during the important and well-attended Go Swim event on Loch Lomond preventing other users from accessing the water at that time.

There also needs to be recognition that some informal events which may attract significant numbers of participants are organised on social media without the planning that would be required for a formal event. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code suggests that such events should be arranged in conjunction with land managers. However, there is little evidence that this actually happens. The National Access Forum, of which RYA Scotland is a corresponding member, should be involved.

The current National Marine Plan (NMP) briefly mentions events in the tourism and recreation section but there are no policies associated with it, just a recommendation that codes of practice for Invasive Non-Native Species and Marine Wildlife Watching should be complied with. Unlike land-based events, there is no land manager to consult. Work has started on developing NMP 2 and it would be useful if it were to include policies both to facilitate events and to minimise adverse environmental and other negative impacts. The Scottish Marine Tourism Strategy, Giant Strides, while focussed more widely on tourism includes a lot of material that is relevant to running sustainable events.