Glasgow Film Festival reports record takings

The numbers are now in and they suggest a big event in the making.

by Jennie Kermode

Four years ago, the Glasgow Film Festival was a bold endeavour with modest hopes. Now figures released by the festival box office show that it's growing fast.

With the official attendance figure at 20,509 - a growth of 35% since last year - the audience survey is also showing interesting results. In its early years the festival attracted mostly people from within Glasgow, a city which has always been passionate about film. This year a quarter of visitors came from elsewhere in Scotland and five percent from elsewhere in the UK, suggesting that the event is firmly establishing itself on the festival map.

"This year's statistics prove what we already know, that we have something special here and it will continue to keep growing," says festival officer Seonaid Frame. "The very small team here at GFF put so much hard work in and it's great to have some hard facts to back us up! Hopefully figures like this will help us to attract more commercial support and investors which will provide us the financial security we need for the festival to grow! Soon this will be the 'Cannes on the Clyde'."

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