Edinburgh gets £3.5m to fight off rival arts festivals

Published Tuesday 11 October 2005 at 14:05 by Nuala Calvi

Edinburgh’s festivals and events are to receive a £3.5 million boost in an attempt to stave off competition from cities such as Liverpool and Manchester to become key cultural destinations.

As part of plans for a £22 million spending programme to regenerate the Scottish capital, councillors have unveiled a £500,000 project to create a central, web-based ticketing portal allowing 24-hour access to festival, concert and theatre tickets. It is hoped the scheme will increase audience numbers as well as allow better planning across the sector and improved audience tracking. A £1 million study will be commissioned into developing the city’s summer, Hogmanay and other festivals, and identifying better marketing and financing strategies for them, while £1 million will go towards developing a strategy for winning more major events for Edinburgh such as the MTV Music Awards.

Steve Cardownie, festival and events spokesman, told The Stage: “We have been lucky in Edinburgh, in that our summer festivals were established back in 1947 and are the biggest arts festivals in the world. But recently there are other cities both here and abroad who are recognising the importance of cultural tourism and who are establishing festivals - places like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Manchester and Liverpool - and they will be in direct competition with us. We shouldn’t be complacent.”

The council is currently waiting for the outcome of a report, entitled Thundering Hooves, into the threat posed by other cities to its status as the major cultural destination outside London.

Paul Gudgin, director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, said he welcomed the council’s commitment to helping the city’s festivals develop. “It’s good that Edinburgh is recognising they are going to have to respond to the changed festival scene in the UK,” he said. “Cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester are investing staggering sums. Liverpool is investing £95 million towards being a major cultural destination, which compares with £65,000 public support the fringe gets per annum.”

The new ticketing system meets one of the aims in the city council’s theatre strategy, launched last year, towards which it has pledged £3 million and the Scottish Arts Council £4.5 million. Among other things the strategy calls for long-term investment in the Lyceum, Traverse, Festival and King’s theatres.

John Stalker, general manager of the Festival and King’s theatres, said: “I think there is a recognition now that we need to nurture and protect Edinburgh’s leading role in festivals, but festivals rely on the theatre infrastructure being of a very high quality. The King’s theatre in particular urgently needs investment. We are in ongoing talks with the council to identify resources for that.”