Edinburgh festivals to get £2m boost

Published Thursday 9 August 2007 at 10:40 by Alistair Smith

Full coverage of the Edinburgh Festivals

Edinburgh’s arts festivals have been promised a £2 million cash injection by the Scottish government in a bid to stave off competition from rival events such as the Manchester International Festival.

As the the 2007 festivals get under way, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond this week earmarked the figure to “promote Scottish work” at the event and to ensure it retains its position as the pre-eminent arts festival in the world.

The cash formed part of the Scottish National Party’s election manifesto when it came to power earlier this year and Salmond has now vowed to further develop the proposals. He has entered discussions with officials from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Festival, among others, to discuss how the subsidy can best be put to use.

A spokesperson for the First Minister told The Stage: “We are now in discussions with arts stakeholders to see how this moves forward. It is our ambition and we are taking it forward at the moment. Our priority is to get more Scottish work at the festivals.”

Last year, Thundering Hooves - the report into the future of the Edinburgh festivals - called on the Scottish Executive to give more money to the City of Edinburgh Council to support the event. Commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council, the report said the festival “cannot risk complacency” and recommended setting up a new forum to monitor the long-term health of Edinburgh as a festival city.

Salmond’s pledge to give that support comes as both EIF director Jonathan Mills and fringe director Jon Morgan complained at the state of funding for their two events as they began this week. The EIF currently receives around £4 million of public funding annually and was awarded an additional £700,000 for this year only.

However, Mills has repeatedly said that he would consider walking away from the festival unless the situation improves and claimed without increased funding the EIF could turn into a weekend-only event.

He added: “We are working with all of our stakeholders to ensure that Edinburgh and Scotland can continue to enjoy the prestige and the tangible benefits of hosting, each year, one of the most important cultural events in the world. The Scottish Executive, SAC and City of Edinburgh Council are hugely supportive of the festival and they worked together to give us extremely helpful additional funding of £700,000 for the 2007 festival. Discussions are now under way on how to secure an appropriate level of funding on a longer-term basis.

“We are working closely with our stakeholders to try to ensure that, rather than fire-fighting each year, we arrive at a long-term settlement. There is no sense waiting until there is a crisis before raising the issue of finance.”

Meanwhile, Morgan has warned that without increased support for the theatre and dance sections of the fringe - which currently receives less than £50,000 of funding - it could risk becoming a “single-genre” comedy event. The director, who like Mills, is in his first year in charge of his event, has said that he is looking into setting up a fund to help support those sections of the fringe which are less commercially viable, such as experimental theatre or dance.