It is the cultural celebration that puts Scotland on the world map every year. As the weekend got underway, Edinburgh’s summer festivals season was well and truly in full swing. Across the city, audiences are packing out theatres, art galleries, cinemas and pop-up venues bringing some of the city’s most historic spaces to life.
By the time the city’s annual arts extravaganza wraps up later this month it will have featured more than 4000 different shows and events likely to have attracted an overall audience well in excess of three million and expected to have generated an estimated £400 million for the city’s economy. Yet behind-the-scenes, in cafes, bars, foyers, official receptions and unofficial gatherings across the city, there is no escaping a feeling of impending doom among many of those involved in Scottish culture. The roots of the anxiety are the prospect of some of the nation’s best-known events, festivals, venues and organisations losing out on long-term funding and what this may mean for their future.
Creative Scotland is due to make its biggest round of funding decisions for more than six years in October, but is still waiting for news how much of a share it will get from a promised £100m in new investment from the Scottish Government for the arts – and whether it will come in time. Initial optimism about the prospect of significant new funding for the industry has waned in recent months due to the lack of any detail about where and when it will be .