Edinburgh Mela 2001
| Organisation |
Edinburgh Mela |
| Project |
Mela on the Mile, a high profile event during the Edinburgh Festival to act as a forerunner to the annual Mela |
| Artform |
Cross artform |
| Location |
Edinburgh |
| Application type |
Full project |
| Date |
2001 |
| Status |
Completed |
| Grant |
£29,999 |
| Total project cost |
£47,860 |
The Edinburgh Mela was formed in 1994 as a platform for the development and promotion of non-western arts in Scotland, with a major focus on South Asian arts. Since staging its first Mela in Meadowbank Stadium on the last weekend of the 1995 Edinburgh International Festival, it has run a series of successful annual melas featuring music, dance, street theatre, visual arts and crafts, food and costume. It has also increased its year-round operation, working with international partners on community and education projects, which feed into the Mela programme. In 2000, the event moved to the city’s Pilrig Park, which was the location for the 2001 Mela.
Mela on the Mile, a high profile, five-day ‘taster’ event on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, (centred on Parliament Square) during the third week of the Edinburgh Festival, was designed to raise public awareness of the Pilrig Park Mela and Melas in general.
- To increase the public profile of the Edinburgh Mela and melas in general
- To enable the Mela to attract a new and broader audience
- To introduce the selling of crafts at the Mela
- To make more financially viable the wider participation of artists and performers from Scotland and abroad
- To play a part in implementing the city’s Festivals Strategy
- Mela on the Mile ran from Monday 27 to Friday 31 August. Taster performances featuring the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop from Lahore and Dhangars from Maharashtra, together with other international and Scottish acts, were staged. Artisans from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra staged craft demonstrations and sold their work.
- New promotional materials about the Edinburgh Mela and its vision, history, activity and potential were distributed at the event. Large information panels highlighted the Mela’s work
- Audience research was undertaken at the Mela on the Mile and the Pilrig Park Mela to measure attendance and to track the level of cross-over between the two events.
- People attending Mela on the Mile were given a free prize draw ticket that they could present at the Pilrig Park Mela as a further means of measuring cross-over numbers.
- Over 10,000 people are estimated to have visited Mela on the Mile, with lunchtimes and evenings being the busiest times.
- Measuring the actual numbers who attended the Mela as a result of Mela on the Mile proved difficult. However, the audience research findings indicated that many people at the Mela knew about it through the media coverage of Mela on the Mile, with a small proportion learning of it while at Mela on the Mile itself.
- The prize draw did not prove a very effective tool for measuring the cross-over attendance.
- Due to its central location the Mela on the Mile generated considerably greater media attention than previous Melas. As a result, the organisation strengthened its links with the media and a much higher public profile for the Pilrig Park Mela was created.
- Bringing performers to Mela on the Mile in advance of the Mela proved to be a good way of heightening public awareness and raising the public profile of the Pilrig Park event. It also gave performers and staff the opportunity to have a first run.
- The Royal Mile’s Parliament Square is not an ideal location for day-time events because of clashes with other users, particularly business people, but is excellent in the evenings. A more mobile approach might be better in the future.
- Selling crafts is a specialist field that the organisation feels it needs to learn more about.
- The work involved in setting up and running Mela on the Mile prior to the Mela resulted in some overload for the organisation, particularly on the administrative side.
Edinburgh Mela
Queen Margaret College
Guthrie Wright Building Room 40
Corstorphine Campus
Clerwood Terrace
Edinburgh
EH12 8TS
Tel: 0131 317 3386
Fax: 0131 557 1400
E-mail: info@edinburgh-mela.co.uk
Web: www.edinburgh-mela.co.uk
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