The head of the £120m Unboxed, an ongoing project aimed at celebrating UK creativity, has said the scheme has been dogged by being nicknamed the “Festival of Brexit” after it attracted a fraction of the target visitor numbers.
Ministers had hoped that the festival would attract 66 million people, but with just over two more months to go, four of the events have so far only drawn 238,000 visitors, according to official figures.
The figures are revealed in an investigation for the latest edition of the political journal the House.
Unboxed’s chief creative officer, Martin Green, told the magazine he only took the job after ministers assured him that it would not be a “jingoistic jamboree” or a “Festival of Brexit”, as it was nicknamed when Theresa May first announced the plan in 2018. But the continuing use of the label has not helped attract visitors, Green said.
He told the House magazine: “It hasn’t left us. And we all must learn from this. Rule one of major events: don’t politicise them. And unfortunately a few chose to politicise it from the beginning.”
Earlier this year a report by the Commons’ digital, culture, media and sport committee said the £120m project had been “an irresponsible use of public money” and said it was “vague and ripe for misinterpretation”.
Green accused the committee of being more interested in attacking the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport than the festival itself.
He said: “Unfortunately, it appears the role of select committees is just to bash the department […] We said to them, in two weeks, we will gladly take you through every project in detail. And they did not take us up on that offer, which I think shows where their interest actually was.”
The House magazine found that some of the organisers of 10 avant garde projects were keen to subvert any association with British nationalism, with many celebrating diversity.
The organisers of one of the events, Dandelion, a Scotland-wide project inspired by the grow-your-own movement, insisted in their contracts that Brexit was not mentioned. A French artist, Nelly Ben Hayoun, who organised Tour de Moon, a celebration of nightlife and countercultures, said the priority of the project was to “redistribute wealth”. She said she had given out 1,500 bursaries, almost twice as many the project initially set out.
The festival has gone largely unnoticed, overshadowed by external events such as the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, the investigation noted.
An unnamed minister told the House magazine the fact that hardly anyone knew Unboxed was happening was an upside.
Sources also said the DCMS was dismayed by how the festival had departed from the original aims. One was quoted as saying it was: “a festival of creativity almost devoid of place. It was really contrary to the original vision”.
But Green insisted that the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, was a fan. She “absolutely loved” Dream machine, an immersive group hallucination in Woolwich, south-east London.
