Aberdeen International Youth Festival to be wound up

Image source, Randall Gee

The trust which runs the Aberdeen International Youth Festival has confirmed it is to be wound up.

The annual event has been taking place since 1973 and has hosted about 30,000 young people from around the world.

Aberdeen city councillors withdrew funding in November, instead deciding to approve 拢100,000 for a Year of Young People Cultural Award Programme.

Trustees have now written to the Scottish charity regulator OSCR to ask for advice on winding it up.

The trust has one full-time employee.

A spokesman for OSCR said: "We are in contact with the trustees about the situation, however we cannot comment any further at this point."

The last remaining councillor on the AIYF board, Marie Boulton, described the decision as "the end of the era of the festival as we know it".

She said: "We need to draw a line under the old youth festival. That's not to say in the future we won't be able to resurrect a different type of international youth festival, that would certainly be our ambition.

"The council was our core funder. The bottom line was we didn't have the money, we didn't have the councillors, which wouldn't allow us to change the organisation the way we wanted to. We thought it appropriate we draw a line now and try to move forward."