Fewer than three million visited Unboxed in person

A £120m celebration of British creativity attracted a total of 2.8 million visitors, newly published audience data shows.

As well as 2.8 million people visiting free live events for the Unboxed festival, 13.5 million accessed digital and broadcast content and 1.7 million took part in learning, volunteer and community participation activities, organisers claim.

The headline figure includes the television audience of a special edition of the BBC programme Countryfile broadcast last month, which featured a 15-minute segment of content created by Unboxed.

The figures fall significantly short of a “stretch target” of 66 million set by the festival’s chief creative officer, Martin Green, who recently left Unboxed to run next year’s Eurovision song contest in Liverpool.

The National Audit Office is currently conducting an official probe into the value for money provided by the government-funded festival – widely dubbed 'The Festival of Brexit' – following a critical report by the DCMS Select Committee which concluded that the investment was "an irresponsible use of public money".

Stuart Andrew, the Minister for Sport, Tourism and Civil Society, said the festival had “taken culture to the doorsteps of millions in communities right across the UK” and “inspired people who attended events, got involved online or watched on TV”.

Since February, 10 free Unboxed projects have opened across the UK. These include a decommissioned gas platform called See Monster in Weston-super-Mare and a trail through the solar system called Our Place in Space in Northern Ireland, Liverpool and Cambridge.