ONE of the world’s glitziest conferences, attended by stars and politicians ranging from Cameron Diaz to Gordon Brown, has abandoned Oxford for Edinburgh.

About 750 people – each paying a $6,000 membership fee – have attended the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford in 2005, 2009 and 2010.

But Bruno Giussani, organiser of TED (Technology Entertainment and Design), said Oxford now “lacked the infrastructure” for such a big conference.

And this year’s bigger-than-ever gathering of invited top people – with about 850 delegates – will instead be held in the Scottish capital in July.

Mr Giussani said: “We are extremely grateful to the city of Oxford and the people we worked with for making TEDGlobal such a success from the beginning.

“The fact is, we’ve outgrown the facilities both in terms of the number of TEDsters we host as well as the scale and technology needed for our increasingly complex and creative presentations and exhibition spaces.”

Andrew Creese, manager of Oxford’s Malmaison Hotel, said the loss of TED would cost the city millions.

He said: “TED booked the whole hotel for a week and we had the pleasure of hosting an evening event for 675 people.

“Now the city and county needs to look at creating a world-class conference centre otherwise it will continue to lose out to place like Edinburgh, let alone other European centres like Barcelona.”

Latest tourist spending figures available from Visit Oxfordshire show that business visitors to Oxford, including conference delegates, spent £65.7m in 2009 – out of a total of £109m in the county.

Susi Golding, director of Visit Oxfordshire, which promotes the city, said: “It’s a shame but we accept that we don’t have the infrastructure.

“And I am not even sure that a top conference centre would be sustainable alongside a working university.”

Last year TED booked out accommodation at the Randolph hotel, the Malmaison and Keble College – and booked up the Playhouse and Sheldonian theatres.

Janet Betts, domestic bursar at Keble College, said: “I literally bumped into Cameron Diaz last year.”

All UK TEDGlobal conferences to date have been held in Oxford.

Organisers bill the conferences as “devoted to ideas worth spreading”.

They pose questions such as ‘What is life? And how can it be better lived?’ Then they invite famous people to arrive unannounced as guest speakers.

Iain Nicholson, director of the Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network, said: “Conferences are a very competitive business so you don’t always win. But examples like this are a powerful reminder that we must continue to work hard so that Oxford and Oxfordshire’s offer remains the best it can be.”