Dundee Culture surpasses incredible 400 million visits as it celebrates its 13th anniversary
- Dundee Culture
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Dundee Culture has reached a major new milestone after surpassing 400 million visits across its digital platforms – as it celebrates 13 years since launching in 2013.
What began as a small passion project celebrating Dundee, created by founder Andrew Batchelor when he was just 12 years old, has grown into one of the city’s largest independent digital platforms, with hundreds of millions of visits recorded across Dundee Culture’s website and social media channels.
The milestone represents an extraordinary rise from just 76,701 visits during Dundee Culture’s first year in 2013. Annual visits passed five million for the first time in 2018, before reaching 14.4 million in 2020, 39.2 million in 2023 and 45.5 million in 2024.
Then came an unprecedented 2025.
A remarkable year for Dundee saw Dundee Culture record more than 161 million visits, helped by huge moments across the city including the opening of FRASERS and LIVEHOUSE, Hannah Laing bringing her new Doof in the Park festival to Dundee, the campaign to save Mills Observatory and its subsequent 90th anniversary celebrations, the Scottish Album of the Year Awards arriving in the city for the first time, the opening of CoSTAR and the return of Christmas festivities to City Square.
The scale of Dundee Culture’s growth since then is perhaps best demonstrated by one remarkable statistic.
At the end of 2024, Dundee Culture had accumulated approximately 159.6 million visits during its entire history.
Less than two years later, that figure has now surpassed 400 million – meaning more than 240 million additional visits have been recorded since the beginning of 2025 alone.
In other words, approximately 60% of every visit Dundee Culture has ever recorded has happened since the start of 2025.
Now, as Dundee Culture celebrates its 13th anniversary on 12 August 2026, the cumulative number of visits recorded since its creation has officially crossed the 400,000,000 mark.
Founder Andrew Batchelor said the milestone was difficult to comprehend when compared with Dundee Culture’s beginnings.
“400 million. I don’t think I’ll ever quite get my head around that number.”
“Dundee Culture started in 2013 simply because I loved Dundee and wanted somewhere I could celebrate everything happening across the city. There wasn’t a grand plan behind it, and I certainly couldn’t have imagined that 13 years later it would have been visited more than 400 million times.
“What makes it even harder to comprehend is how quickly things have grown recently. At the end of 2024, we had recorded around 160 million visits in total. Less than two years later, we’ve passed 400 million. Around 60% of all the visits Dundee Culture has ever had have happened since the beginning of 2025.
“Those numbers ultimately represent people – people discovering something happening in Dundee, celebrating good news, learning something about our history, supporting a local business, attending an event or simply sharing their love for the city.
“Dundee Culture wouldn’t be what it is without the incredible community that has grown around it. Thank you to everyone who has followed, shared, commented, contributed a story or supported what I do over the past 13 years.
“From 76,701 visits in 2013 to more than 400 million today – that’s Dundee Culture, and we’re nowhere near finished yet.”
Continuing to grow in 2026
While 2025 proved to be an exceptional year for Dundee Culture, with an unusually busy calendar of major openings, events and developments across the city, millions of visits have continued to be recorded every month throughout 2026.
More than 73 million visits were recorded between January and July 2026 alone, already making the first seven months of this year bigger than any entire year in Dundee Culture’s history prior to 2025.
Growth has continued across Dundee Culture’s social platforms too, with TikTok followers increasing by almost 60% over the past year, highlighting the continued expansion of the platform across newer social media audiences.
Dundee Culture’s community also continues to span generations. Audience data across its major social platforms shows strong representation across different age groups, with Millennials forming one of its largest audiences and Gen Z particularly prominent across Instagram and TikTok.
The figures demonstrate how, 13 years after its creation, Dundee Culture continues to reach both long-standing followers and new generations of people interested in what’s happening across the city.
Celebrating Dundee remains at its heart
Dundee Culture continues to cover the city’s arts, music, culture, food and drink, heritage, events, community projects and major developments, while working alongside organisations, attractions and businesses across Dundee.
Over the years, the platform has evolved considerably from the page created by a 12-year-old in 2013, but the idea behind it remains remarkably similar – to celebrate Dundee and the people, places and stories that make the city what it is.
From fewer than 77,000 visits in its first year to hundreds of millions today, Dundee Culture has grown alongside the city it was created to celebrate.
And another extraordinary milestone is already appearing on the horizon.
With 400 million visits now surpassed, Dundee Culture begins the journey towards half a billion.
