Scottish Rugby is committed to its long-term future being at Murrayfield and will making “incremental” improvements to the stadium, bosses have said.
Chairman John McGuigan said the finances for a “complete reset” of the stadium – which celebrates its centenary next year and has not undergone major work for 30 years – were not available and that any improvements would have to be carried out over a longer period.
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“We’re going to have an ongoing rolling plan of continuous work that we do,” he said, before outlining the first tranche of those improvements to the stadium’s big screens and public address system.
In the press briefing after the annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, McGuigan, chairman of Scottish Rugby Limited, the operating arm of the organisation, said: “We’re going to continue to do that type of thing.
"We’ve got things we must do to make sure the stadium remains safe. It is safe, but we need to continue to work on that.
"We need to do other things that enable a better fan experience.
“In an ideal world we’ll incrementally build stuff that enables us to have fans coming earlier, staying longer, maybe watching another game - doing it in a space where they’re not dependent on weather alone to determine whether they can stay here or not.
“It’s going to have to be incremental,” he stressed again, adding: “We’re never going to have the type of money to do a complete reset of the stadium and the footprint. It’s going to have to be a very tactical, progressive thing that we do over the years.”
Murrayfield has played host to Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen in recent years, while Robbie Williams is set to perform at the home of Scottish Rugby next year.
McGuigan was confident the incremental improvements planned will be enough to ensure the biggest names in music are drawn to the historic stadium.
"When I came to the Taylor Swift event I met the promoter. And he said to me ‘I’ve done this for years, and Glasgow was always my place, because Glasgow is the home of music. And I’d never think about Edinburgh as being a place to come to. But coming to Taylor Swift has completely changed my mind.’
"He said air routes out of Edinburgh are better, more people from Europe came to Edinburgh and bought their tickets because of the location - they want a few days in Edinburgh and combine it with Taylor Swift.
"He said ‘It’s completely changed my perspective’ and he said it’s becoming more and more for a global star that that’s where they would come when they come to Scotland.”
But McGuigan was cautious around how many events the stadium could host on top of its rugby internationals.
“We’ve got to respect the location that we’re in,” he said.
"We are talking about probably the threes and fours. We’ll be guided by keeping good relationships with the residents, and also we need to work very closely with the council and with the police.
"There’s lots of different things that we can do to generate income, but we need to do it in the context of keeping everyone else onside.
“We can’t fall out with the local residents, we can’t have anything other than a great relation with the council, so we need to be very careful with how we do it.”
Meanwhile, McGuigan hopes new chief executive Alex Williamson will be able to start before the Six Nations begins in February.
Williamson, who was announced as Mark Dodson’s successor in September after a protracted recruitment process that saw Scottish Rugby’s preferred candidate, Mark Darbon, turn them down at the 11th hour in favour of a similar job with The R&A.
McGuigan added: “He is due to start in early February but I’m hoping he’s going to be here at the beginning of January, even if it’s not full-time.”
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“I want him to get a good start. I think if he comes straight into the Six Nations it’s a whirlwind for those six weeks.
“I would love him to have January to get his feet under the table and get to know people and then take it from there.”
And McGuigan also addressed proposals for a breakaway-style league which were first reported earlier this month.
"It would be wrong of us to pretend it's not potentially a threat, it could be, but we don't know enough yet,” said McGuigan.
“It feels early days yet but worth keeping on the radar."
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