Festivals

Derby Museums is teaming up with CAMRA to put on a beer festival in the city.

The Derby CAMRA Heritage Beer Festival will take place at the Museum of Making from 13-16 November and celebrate the city’s brewing heritage.

It is hoped it will become an annual event, marking the return of a beer festival to the city after a four-year gap.

Dr Alex Rock, director of commercial and operations at Derby Museums, said: “The Museum of Making celebrates the making heritage of Derby and Derbyshire, and key to this heritage is beer.

“On Museum Square, outside Derby Museum and Art Gallery, is a statue to Michael Thomas Bass, the brewing magnate who financed the build of the Museum and Art Gallery.

“Beer flows through the DNA of the city – Derby is the best city in England to drink real ale, and we’re proud to be working in partnership with CAMRA to celebrate the heritage of beer and brewing and the great culture of beer our city offers today.”

Tickets for the festival will go on sale in September.

Scottish Culture Secretary Angus Robertson has promised that government and public bodies will work with the nation’s arts festivals and wider culture sector to “enhance the vital role” of festivals.

In an open letter to the culture sector, Robertson said he has set up a formal Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Festivals to use “knowledge and expertise” to inform how the sector is supported in the future and said that Creative Scotland and Events Scotland have been invited to participate.

Calling Scotland’s arts festivals the “jewel” in the culture sector and national life, Robertson said: “With the help of the sector, which has already identified many of the necessary next steps, I want to ensure that we are best-supporting festivals. 

“This will include additional Scottish Government funding, which is committed to raise additional annual spending on culture and the arts by £100m by 2028/29, aiming for an increase of £25m next year.”
 

The charity that runs one of the best-known Edinburgh Fringe venues has announced it is close to securing a three-year lease for the building. 

The future of Summerhall, a former vet school comprised of seven buildings that host hundreds of performances annually, has been uncertain after the building was put up for sale in May. Prospective owners were offered several "refurbishment options," including a change of use to residential, offices or student housing.

The complex is owned by Oesselmann Estates Limited, based on the Isle of Man, but is run by Summerhall Management. Summerhall Management works with its charity arm Summerhall Arts, founded in October 2023, to deliver an annual visual arts programme in the building alongside a programme of professional development and artist support.

The new terms of the three-year lease would see the charity take control of delivery of the entire year-round artistic and events programme and the employment of programming and operational teams.

“We have been working flat out to find a way to safeguard the consistent artistic delivery and the year-round programme of events at Summerhall, not just through the sales process, but into the future,” said Summerhall Arts Chief Executive Sam Gough.

“Whilst the Fringe and other events for this year are safe, we have been conscious that a longer-term future for the management of the building and the delivery of the arts has been less certain.”

To maintain its programme, Summerhall Arts is launching a fundraising campaign to help cover the core running costs of its artistic output.

Speaking on behalf of the building's owners, Stephen Kay from commercial agency Cuthbert White said: "We have always understood the importance of Summerhall for the culture sector and the city. This arrangement will allow Summerhall Arts the opportunity to keep the legacy alive and give them the time needed to secure a much longer future with any prospective new owners.

"We are supportive of their ambition to secure the future of Summerhall’s ongoing arts provision and will do what we can to facilitate their position." 

Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has revealed a new sponsorship deal with JetBlue.

The deal involves JetBlue supporting the Fringe Society’s Keep It Fringe US fund. Launched in April, the scheme aims to raise $350,000 to support 50 US-based artists to perform at the festival in 2025.

The partnership follows a new route launched by the American airline to the Scottish Capital. 

Shona McCarthy, Fringe Society Chief Executive, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with JetBlue, whose value offering for transatlantic travellers will hopefully make it easier and more affordable for US artists and performing arts pioneers to visit Edinburgh."

More than 100 performers have cancelled appearances at the Great Escape music festival in Brighton in protest over claims that event sponsor Barclays Bank has increased its investment in arms companies that trade with Israel.

According to a report in The Guardian, 120 acts, around a quarter of those booked, have now backed out of performing as part of a campaign led by activist group Bands Boycott Barclays.

In April, the group sent an open letter signed by hundreds of musicians, including Massive Attack, Idles, and Eno, calling for Barclays to drop as the festival's partner.

A spokesperson for Bands Boycott Barclays said: “Barclays is bankrolling the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and then laundering its reputation by partnering with music festivals like the Great Escape. As musicians, we think that’s despicable.”

Barclays noted a previous statement from its annual general meeting: “Barclays is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ … in relation to these companies. We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand, and that may result in us holding shares.”

Leaders of the Cheltenham Paint Festival have launched a fundraising appeal after Arts Council England (ACE) turned down their application for National Lottery Project Funding.

Writing on Facebook, the team behind the free annual event said: "After our 2023 event, the South West Director of the Arts Council of England, Phil Gibby, visited the festival and could not believe they weren't funding us and persuaded me to go for funding for the next event. Despite that, we have been turned down by them yet again.

"Sadly, this puts us in the position of, once again, asking you wonderful supporters to step in where they've failed."

Speaking to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, festival Founder Andy Davies said: "I accept there's a process and it's hard times, and an increasingly larger amount of people are applying for an increasingly smaller amount of money.

"But what's galling is, having looked at [the projects ACE] does support...they are ticketed and gated, they have funds coming in.

"As a free arts festival, we don't have a gate, we can't charge people to get in to the town and it's very difficult to run without that sort of resource."

Davies also suggested that the perception of Cheltenham as being wealthy had been detrimental to his bid. 

The event was cancelled in 2023 due to a lack of funds but went ahead after a successful public appeal. Since its launch on 14 April, the current appeal has raised £1,890 toward a £20,000 target. 

ACE commented: "We're pleased to have supported Cheltenham Paint Festival on a number of occasions in the past, but the National Lottery Project Grants programme is highly competitive, and regrettably, there are always many more good applications than the Arts Council can fund.

"While the Festival's most recent application was unsuccessful, we welcome future submissions and remain in close contact with cultural stakeholders in the area."

Separately, The Elgar Festival has also asked for public donations after ACE cut its project funding by 40% to £29,999.

Kenneth Woods, Elgar Festival's Artistic Director, said: "ACE is operating under really difficult funding restraints which have built up over more than a decade of standstill revenues.

“But they have also made a number of strategic decisions to shift investment away from traditional art forms into community work, non-traditional art forms, urban renewal and social justice.

"All of these are worthwhile endeavours, but the Arts Council is the only dedicated state funder of the arts serving English communities and supporting English artists and arts organisations."

An Arts Council England spokesperson said: “Arts Council England is absolutely committed to creative excellence, in all the shapes and sizes it comes in, and across all the arts organisations, museums and libraries in which we invest. 

“We have a longstanding relationship with the festival and have awarded them £143,000 worth of public money since 2019, via our National Lottery project funding.

“Competition for this particular fund is very high and funding does not roll over from one project to another, nor is it guaranteed year after year. To that end, it is testament to the strength of Elgar Festival’s offering that we have been able to invest in them as often as we have.”