A BRAND new festival expected to bring more than £1 million to the Perth and Kinross economy has been given the green light.
Otherlands – which hopes to attract a crowd of 7000 – will take place this month from August 19-21 at Scone Palace.
Councillors this week unanimously agreed to award a temporary public entertainment licence for the forthcoming festival.
The event is forecast to create 400 jobs over the course of the weekend with around £1.4m spent on goods and services from local and regional suppliers.
Organisers have pledged to raise £10,000 for local charities which include VisionPK.
Otherlands is being described by its Edinburgh-based organisers FLY Events as a “new boutique music and arts festival”.
Licensing lawyer Niall Hassard told Perth and Kinross Council’s Licensing Committee on August 3 that Scone Palace was “arguably one of the best venues”.
At Wednesday’s meeting in the council chambers he said: “They have a niche and that is ‘good music for good people in great places’ and Scone Palace is arguably one of the best venues Tom has had the privilege to work with.”
Tom Ketley is the festival’s founder and Sam Joss the festival manager.
FLY has previously hosted festivals in venues which include Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh and South Queensferry stately home Hopetoun House “bringing stunning locations to life with something a bit different”.
Lawyer Hassard told councillors Otherlands would offer an alternative to the usual tried and tested format.
He said: “This isn’t a run-of-the-mill festival. It’s seeking to celebrate a whole spectrum of the arts.
“It’s multi-genre. We’re talking about everything from electronic music right through to jazz. But it’s not just music that’s going to be going at the festival. There will be art installations, comedy, theatre and workshops – things like teaching people how to DJ.
“Alongside standard camping there will be glamping and a wellness area – yoga, massage and that sort of thing.
“There will be restaurant chefs with restaurant food.”
Organisers hope to fill a void in the festival market and offer something a bit more boutique to those in the 20-40 age group.
Hassard said: “People don’t want to be pitching tents knee-deep in mud. They don’t want the horrible event toilets. They don’t want the greasy burger vans. They want something a bit more experiential – dare I say it – a bit more high end.
“What they [FLY Events] hope is this creates a slightly different festival type environment and influences the market going forward and maybe reinvigorates the idea of a camping festival.
“There are very few of them left and the ones that are left are doing a great job – just for the record.”
He added: “The experience of working with Perth and Kinross has been second to none. We do festivals up and down the country and let’s just say Perth and Kinross definitely had a process where we felt very welcome. We had all of the issues fully explored and were able to work with all the various partners.”
To date, 4800 weekend camping tickets have been sold, 100 day tickets for Friday, 500 for Saturday and 500 for Sunday.
The festival has a capacity of 7000.
Councillors were told over 100 tickets have been made available free to residents closest to the site and 500 half-price tickets to residents that would be affected by noise across the Tay in the North Muirton area.
Tickets have been sold globally including as far away as Australia. The majority of sales have been in Scotland with 55 per cent from the Central Belt and 34 per cent from Perth and Kinross.
Councillors unanimously granted approval and wished the organisers well.
After the meeting festival manager Joss told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We are very pleased to have had our application for Otherlands’ public entertainment licence granted today, and with such warm words from the committee.
“We’d like to thank the councillors as well as all the partner agencies at PKC, Police Scotland, Scone Palace and everyone else involved for their continued support. We look forward to welcoming everyone to Otherlands in just over two weeks’ time.”
