Each August for the last 29 years, Visby in Gotland has been home to a Medieval Week, inviting thousands of reenactors, craftsmen and volunteers to dress up and participate in the festivities.
For thirty years, Visby on the island of Gotlanbd in the Baltic has been home to a well regarded Medieval Week. This year, however, they missed out on the traditional opening ceremony, where the “Danish King, Valdemar Atterdag” rides into town to tax the locals – mimicking (the myths) about the actual events in 1361, when he attacked the island with a modern and very well-equipped army. After having killed off the peasants with their billhooks in front of the wall at Visby, the city opened its gates to avoid despoiling. Exactly how much the good citizens, in the end, coughed up with is unknown. But it is believed to have been significant sums of mint, jewels and other values.
However, as said, this year the rather famous show was called off. The reason was lack of funding, more precisely, the pitiful sum of €35.000. How come?
Budget
The Medieval Week at Gotland has existed since 1983 and has a budget of €465.000, of which € 350.000 represent savings from last year, while the local government and sponsors pay for the rest. The event is organised by a company – Medeltidsveckan AB. This year (2012) has seen approximately the same number of visitors as last year, raising hopes amongst the organisers for 2013, when the festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary. Hopefully, the traditional show at the beginning as well as the massive re-enactment of the battle of Visby will once again take place.
Arguably, the Medieval Week is the crucial tourist festival at Gotland, an island off the Swedish Coast in the Baltic Sea. Designated UNESCO World Heritage, Visby was once a Hanseatic city. It boasts of a nearly complete medieval wall, a splendid Cathedral, eight church ruins in the middle of the city, plus a significant number of medieval houses.
In 2007 a major survey was done by “Turismens Utrednings Institut” – Medeltidsveckan 5 – 12 august 2007 Visby.
According to this survey, the festival was visited by at least 40.000 people, of which 80% stayed three days or more (computed from the number of fee-paying guests). During the festival in 2007, 331 personal interviews were conducted. From the information gathered from these interviews, it appears that 75% were tourists arriving from outside Gotland, two-thirds of which came solely to experience or work at the Medieval Week. These 20.000 persons – who would not have visited Gotland if the Medieval Week had not lured them – generated a total turnover of €14.5 Million. All in all, the Medieval Week generated a turnover 44 times that of the initial investment (€20.5)
Why, then, is the festival experiencing economic troubles of this magnitude? Especially since it seems but a drop in the ocean of the regional budget of more than half a billion €.
One reason is the time of the year. Originally the festival was scheduled to prolong the tourist season at Gotland. However, the festival is traditionally planned at the end of the school holidays and in the first Week of August, when it opens on a Sunday morning with a solemn commemorative service in the cathedral of Visby followed by a procession leading towards the battlefield, where a local army of peasants was slaughtered in 1361 on the 27th of July. Also, the festival depends on a significant staff of volunteers and just plain medieval buffs, all of whom prefer to work or dress up in the last week of the school holidays. Finally, a lot of the professional traders in the market – which is the main event – prefer to keep the traditional date. Rescheduling it might collide with the later medieval events in Finland and Denmark, of which they do a “tour”. On the other hand, local and more traditional tourist entrepreneurs on the rest of the island have long lobbied for a reschedule. They claim they experience a loss of up to 70% while the festival is on and wish to move it to late August.
This story about the financial woes of the local company, which organises this highly significant event, is not unique. Reports abound from other places, as is witnessed by a recently published report on “Tourism, Festivals and Cultural Events in Times of Crisis.”
SOURCE:
“Tourism, Festivals and Cultural Events in Times of Crisis” . Well worth a read…
Tourism, Festivals and Cultural Events in Times of Crisis.
Ed. by Lise Lyck, Phil Long and Allan Xenisu Grige.
Copenhagen Business School 2012.