News – Threat to Edinburgh festivals

A study into the future of Edinburghs arts festivals has concluded that without significant long-term investment, the city could become an also-ran as a festival hot-spot. The Thundering Hooves report examined the impact of the growing number of festivals in the UK and internationally and the efforts made in other cities to promote tourism through cultural activity. The study, carried out by AEA Consulting suggests that while current attendance levels and visitor numbers for Edinburghs 11 festivals indicate Edinburghs position in the short term is secure, the increasing strength of competing festivals could come to undermine Edinburghs position of pre-eminence as a festival city.
To counter this, the report makes a number of detailed recommendations including the establishment of an ongoing forum to manage a long-term festival strategy for the city to ensure that the brand value of the festivals is sustained and to make sure that funding is targeted towards areas that do or can attain a degree of distinctiveness and pre-eminence within their respective artforms. It argues that, given the economic impact of the festivals on the city and on Scotland as a whole, the City Council should increase its current cultural spending from 2.8% of its total budget (£19.2m last year) to 4% and the Scottish Executive should look to invest in the citys cultural infra-structure. Other recommendations include placing an emphasis on programming new work, improved succession planning for senior staff and a joined up approach to education and to marketing the city and its festivals.

In recent years, many of Edinburghs festivals have increased attendance and audiences but the naming of Liverpool as European Capital of Culture for 2008 and London as host city for the 2012 Olympics have alarmed festival organisers, fearful of Edinburghs popularity being undermined. In addition, the establishment of new high profile festivals like the biennial Manchester International Festival which will be launched in 2007 and the increase in audiences at other festivals around the country has threatened to undermine Edinburghs audience share. Speaking to The Scotsman newspaper, Paul Gudgin, Director of the Fringe Festival said, Weve been foolish not to pay attention to what Manchester is doing. As a tourist destination, it is one of Edinburghs key competitors and they do have many strengths. Undoubtedly, by starting an international festival on the scale they are attempting to do, it is going to increase their ability to compete with Edinburgh on what has traditionally been Edinburghs main strength  its recognition as one of the main festival cities.

The report concludes that if Edinburgh fails to immediately adopt a strategic approach to long-term planning backed up with significant resources, its place at the top of the cultural league table will be taken. Among the 10,000 festivals staged around the world each year, the study cites Barcelona, Montreal, Shanghai, Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong, as the chief threats to Edinburgh.