A government-commissioned festival aimed at bringing people together post-Brexit largely flopped, a final evaluation of the scheme has revealed.
The Unboxed science and arts festival, named a “festival of Brexit” by Jacob Rees-Mogg, cost the taxpayer £116.8m.
But the programme, announced by former prime minister Theresa May, brought together just a fraction of the audiences initially hoped for and but
Early “stretch” predictions of 66 million visitors to the festival were later scaled down to 9 million.
In the event, 20.5 million people engaged with one of the Unboxed activities over the eight months, either in person, digitally or through broadcasts.
Slightly more than 2.7 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.
Culture minister Stuart Andrew said: “Unboxed brought people across the UK together in a celebration of science, the arts and creativity, touching the lives of millions.”
Source: Microsoft Network