Inverness Hogmanay ex organiser’s sadness at loss of annual Highland Council event
Sadness was the overwhelming feeling for the original organiser of the annual Red Hot Highland Fling following its demise.
Gerry Reynolds, who was Highland Council’s Inverness events manager from 1999 to 2020 when he retired, launched the Hogmanay celebration in 2008.
“The Hogmanay event wasn’t just about bringing people to Inverness, it was about the relationship with the community and doing events that people looked forward to,” he said.
“We had the winter festival with our Halloween event, bonfire night, Christmas lights switch-on, Winter Wonderland and Hogmanay - now what’s left?
“As an outsider now, it all seems a bit empty and a bit frustrating as a wasted opportunity for building on what had gone before, but overall I have a feeling of sadness, especially when I think of all the local performers and businesses that were involved throughout the years. I know it meant a lot to them and I took the view that we had to offer people a good time at Hogmanay - and do it in a car park.”
Highland Council said it could no longer justify the costs incurred by the Inverness Common Good Fund in running the show.
Mr Reynolds believes the common good fund may have suffered reduced income when the council moved some employees out of Inverness Town House, which is owned by the fund. He also thought the move to no longer organise it “in-house” could have been a costly decision.
“The common good fund was paying for a wonderful events programme,” he said. “At the outset, we agreed it should be free, inclusive and family friendly. The moment that changes, people are going to compare what they are getting now with what they had before.
“For us, there was clearly a demand for these events - and probably still would be now. So this was an avoidable failure.
“Our approach was to heavily invest in local companies and keep as much of the spending as local as possible so the money was circulating locally.
“We would aim to get backing from councillors in the September of the previous year so we’d have around 15 months to build momentum and give hotels and other businesses advanced warning and help get people here to go to the event.
“It’s not just about running it on the night or even pushing it just a few weeks beforehand.
“I was fortunate to be surrounded by good people.”
When asked about the impact of council staff moving from the Town House, a council spokesperson referred us to two news releases, this one about proposals for revenue savings and this one about council asset rationalisation savings, instead of providing a comment.