Much of the entertainment in seaside resorts is likely to have been ‘incidental’ since it would not have been the main reason for going on holiday. Audiences would be arts-peripheral. On the other hand, its significance could have been considerable in so far as it appeared to constitute a major form of diversion during the holiday. ‘Throughout the period . . . the quality of a resort’s range of commercial entertainment was an important competitive weapon’ (Walton, 1983a: 157). Even in Monte Carlo, a place so obviously geared to the one function of gambling, it was
necessary that developers should build ‘superb hotels and sumptuous restaurants. They organised princely entertainments for which Europe’s finest artists were engaged’ (Pimlott, 1947: 200).