International Ayr Show cost at least £100K more than stated

South Ayrshire Council heralded the show as a huge success, estimating that 240,000 people attended the event over the course of three days.

But the gap between the cost of the event to the council and the amount of money it brought in through operating it has grown.

At a meeting of the council on Wednesday, SNP Group Leader, Councillor William Grant, submitted a written question to Chief Executive, Mike Newall on the event’s final cost.

Mr Newall said that the initial post-event report in November had said that the cost was £364k, with £256k in income to offset the costs.

However, Mr Newall admitted that incorrectly coded invoices and other outstanding work meant that the final cost is still not known.

The final cost will be at least the £469k that has so far been confirmed, with much of the increase blamed on increased costs since the last airshow event held in South Ayrshire.

Mr Newall added that the costs would act as a benchmark for this year’s event. While the cost has risen by more than £100k, the income has increased by just £8k.

A further £65k in invoices are being looked at to determine whether they will be viewed as costs related to the airshow.

In his response Mr Newall said: “The initial report in November detailed that the cost to the council to deliver the event was £364,000 and in addition the event generated a total income of £256,325.

“Work is still ongoing to confirm final invoices and budget coding and at that point we will have confirmation of the final cost.

“It became apparent after the report was submitted in November last year, that some of the invoices had been incorrectly coded and so these were not included in the initial figure.

“In addition a combination of late invoices and a significant number of duplicate invoices were received and so at present we can only give a figure on what has been verified and that now stands at £469,336.

“There remain a number of budget lines still under review to ensure that they are accurately coded and some of these may relate to the air show.

“The total currently under review is £65,000. In addition our income has also risen to £264,814.

“The spend was higher than previously projected as external supplier costs have increased significantly since previous large-scale events were delivered.

“However, the International Ayr Show – Festival of Flight – delivered significant economic benefit to Ayr by attracting over 240,000 people into the area and it put South Ayrshire in the spotlight by highlighting the area as a destination of choice.

“No staffing costs were charged to the Ayr Show – departments supported the event within existing resources and remits.

“We are focused on planning for this year’s event, and we are able to plan and project costs more accurately as we now have last year’s costs to use as a benchmark.”