The Enchanted Forest Wins Top Tourism Award
The Enchanted Forest, Perthshires multi-award winning sound and light show, has staved off competition from 38 of Scotlands top tourism providers to take home the Tourism & Hospitality Award at the recent Scottish Rural Awards.
The show, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary this year attracted just over 62,000 visitors to the Highland Perthshire area in 2015 over a 32 night run, demonstrating a 33% increase on the previous year, breaking all previous box office records. The events impact on the local tourism economy is now expected to be in the region of £2.75million per annum with over 50% of all visitors to the event choosing to stay overnight in the area on their visit and 90% citing the event as their main reason for visiting the area in the Autumn.
Ian Sim, acting chairman of The Enchanted Forest Community Trust that runs The Enchanted Forest, commented:
This is a tremendous achievement for Highland Perthshire in a hotly contested category at one of Scotlands most prestigious awards. We continue to be deeply encouraged by the continued support of our visitors, many of them loyal visitors who return to the Forest year after year, and winning the Tourism & Hospitality Award is testimony to the hard work put in by the community to make The Enchanted Forest such a successful and popular event.
Visitors to the event in 2015 included Radio 1 DJ Rob da Bank who tweeted out his attendance to his 81,000 followers as well as Tomas Jansen, Head of Sales for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts who, following his visit, commented:
It was great!!! Well done and well executed, we really enjoyed it.
The show was also featured on BBC1 Countryfile last Autumn with presenter Ellie Harrison revealing the wonders of The Enchanted Forest to the nation.
Over 5000 people who were not lucky enough to get tickets for last years show have already signed up to an advance notice list to purchase tickets for 2016. More information on how to sign up is available on www.enchantedforest.org.uk
The 2015 show FLUX was designed by a creative team led by Derek Allan including Scottish lighting designers Kate Bonney and Simon Hayes, and specially composed and recorded music, and sound effects by RJ McConnell and Jon Beales. Together they created a dazzling and engaging show which celebrates the stunning woodland setting of the event.