Keith wrote:North Stand Shrimp wrote:Why do people always say the Council should do this, or the council should do that? If there was a viable business opportunity then a company would be knocking down the doors of the Winter Gardens wanting to offer such tours.
If a ghost walk tour of the Winter Gardens made a £50 loss, but brought twenty people in to the town, who were all booked in to B&B's and went out for meals in the local area, each spending £60, then the local economy benefits to the tune of £3,000 for an investment by the council of £50. So in isolation, it is not a viable business but as a way of promoting the town, it is.
Obviously, I'm not for one moment suggesting that it should be done, simply using an example to illustrate why sometimes the council are the best organisation to do things, that a for profit company wouldn't. A similar example could be the council's preferential loan to MFC to build the North Stand on the basis that our success brings greater benefit to the town (as has been proved).
Although your quite right about it being a great idea for promoting the town, at the moment the council are being asked to cut budgets, cut staff and cut services. How on earth do they find the money and justify a loss making project? I think a £50 loss is no where near what your looking at when you look at all the bureacracy that goes with health and safety etc, plus a tour guides wage, plus the work that would have to be carried out on the Winter Gardens, plus the advertising and marketing of the tours that would be needed to get any kind of numbers of outside tourists in to justify it all.
The production team that are making Most haunted have spent a lot of money to give the illusion that the Winter Gardens looks to be in a fit state to lead ghost tours around. The reality is that a lot of expensive work would need to be carried out on the building to get it to look like it does on TV at the moment. If you go around the back you will see the amount of back room support is needed!!
Like another poster said, there already is a ghost tour covering a lot of the landmarks that are being covered in the programme anyway.
Back to P/T indie's post, I didn't disagree that it's a great idea just that like most things it comes down to money and unless it's a viable business venture in itself I don't think it will ever happen. Perhaps the money that is going into keeping the Dome going could be spent better here?
As for the MFC preferential Loan, that's completely different as it was a loan made to a viable business and to be paid back. If the Friends of The Winter Gardens wants a preferential loan to undertake the tours themselves then I have no problem with that at all as longs as its paid back.