Farming: Highland Show live stream proves big hit on first day

RHASS chairman Bill Gray and chief executive Alan Laidlaw outside the new members' pavilion

With more than 35,000 views of the live stream of yesterday’s Royal Highland Showcase logged by 5pm, the organisers were both delighted and relieved by the uptake of the groundbreaking initiative.

“Such a high rate of uptake has provided proof of concept and showed that the ambitious idea of staging and live-streaming the event has been achievable,” said Alan Laidlaw, chief executive of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) which organises the show.

“Clearly our first choice would have been to stage a normal event, but to pull the showcase together from an idea originally conceived less than 80 days ago is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of the team who managed to do this while often working from home through Zoom meetings during Covid restrictions.”

And with other major shows – such as the Great Yorkshire – which had proposed to run a public event on the expectation that restrictions would be further relaxed waiting with baited breath for the latest announcement, Laidlaw said that working closely with Scotland’s deputy National Clinical Director for health had seen the Highland showcase set up in such a way that it was unlikely to be affected by any changes to expected relaxations.

Serving as the nerve-centre for the broadcasting operations, the new £5 million members’ pavilion took on its first farming role, having served as a Covid vaccination centre. The show’s operations manager Mark Currie said that recent investment in infrastructure which included fibre optic cabling around the showground meant that the site was amongst the best provisioned in Scotland.

This view was supported by Simon Cousins, hired as executive producer for the broadcasts, who said that the equipment and manpower required for coverage of the showcase was comparable to that of a major international event such as the Commonwealth Games.

With a £750,000 investment in the showcase, the Scottish Government’s new Rural Affairs cabinet secretary, Mairi Gougeon was taking the opportunity to meet with farmers at the event.

But while policy development might have ranked highly on the agenda of those who spoke with her, other than a reaffirmation of the manifesto promise to set up an implementation board during the first hundred days, the secretary offered no firm timescale.