Royal wedding: Evening Standard aims to print first pictures
The London Evening Standard is to break with its long-held practice of not publishing on bank holidays in order to be the first in print with pictures of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The Standard, which has not published on a bank holiday for more than 50 years, is planning two special editions on Friday in order to make sure it is able to run the first images of the all-important "balcony kiss".
It will be the first time since January last year that Standard has run two editions – the title traditionally used to do a midday News Extra edition followed by the West End Final. However, the practice was scrapped following the paper's takeover by Russian mogul Alexander Lebedev.
The first Friday edition is set to hit the streets at about 1pm, while the second, which will not head to the printers until immediately after the newlyweds' balcony kiss, is expected to be available from about 2.30pm.
"We aim to bring [what will be] in 'tomorrow's newspapers' to our readers on the actual day," said the Evening Standard editor, Geordie Greig.
The Standard also intends to target the massive crowds expected to swell the wedding at Westminster Abbey and venues with screens such as Hyde Park – numbers have been estimated to possibly match the 600,000 that flocked to witness the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
The London evening daily prints just over 700,000 copies a day – of which 500,000 will targeted at wedding fans.
The double edition is likely to be attractive to advertisers; the biggest spender on board is the Berkeley Group, the building group behind London and south-east luxury developments such as St George Wharf and 375 Kensington High Street.
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