London Design Festival has claimed record visitor figures for 2017, but admitted it counted every person who visited participating museums and passed through public squares hosting installations.
The festival issued a press release saying it welcomed an estimated 419,799 individual visitors between 16 and 24 September, and had 930,773 visits overall. Twenty-four per cent of these were overseas visitors, it said.
An LDF spokesperson said that all previous attendance records were broken in 2017, the festival's fifteenth year. "They are all record breaking [figures] which is fantastic!" the spokesperson said. "Busiest weekend, busiest day and busiest week!"
However the spokesperson admitted that the figures included everyone who entered the V&A museum, and everyone who visited venues including Somerset House and the Design Museum during the festival period. The figures also included everyone who passed through Exchange Square next to Liverpool Street Station. The square, part of the bustling Broadgate office development, hosted Villa Walala, an inflatable installation by graphic designer Camille Walala during the festival.
London Design Festival said it counted everyone who passed through Exchange Square, the site of Camille Walala's Villa Walala, as an LDF visitor
The festival's press release claimed that "150,000 people passing through Broadgate each day had the opportunity to see Villa Walala".
When pressed on the figures by Dezeen, the ...