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January 22, 2005
Value of Edinburgh Festival
A report in the Scotsman by Edward Black confirms what we already knew - that the summer festivals in Edinburgh generate a lot of money. The figure given is 135 million pounds. This stands in stark contrast to the funding of a meagre 2.5 million that the leading International Arts Festival receive.
I believe Edinburgh is in danger of cooking the goose than lays the golden eggs. Time is running out for Edinburgh to invest in better facilities. In particular we need a proper national theatre complex similar to the one recently opened in Cardiff. Each year the British media do a sterling job in hyping up the festival, but more and more people see through it. Edinburgh may be a beautiful city, but wouldn’t we rather be at festivals in Salzburg, Lucerne or Aix-en-Provence?
Edinburgh continues to do some things well, but the International Festival has lost much of its prestige. It is no longer in the same league as the main European Festivals which are coherently planned and present their own (original) events. Edinburgh programmes are haphazard with artists often appearing simply to double up on performances in London.
There is a lot more to the summer activities than just the International Arts Festival, but the lack of facilities that limit the latter also impact on many other events, and the reputation of one festival affects all of them.
thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=73702005
Posted by Simon Holledge at January 22, 2005 10:30 PM
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Comments
I am afraid that most of the festival is simply a big UK "entertainment" trade fair nowadays, and not a very good trade fair at that (C-list springs to mind). My pet dislike is the Television Festival - never international, never much to do with Scotland either, and sooooo self-obsessed.
We should reach out far more to the wider world, instead of stopping our search for talent at about Kent.
Posted by: Stuart Dickson at January 24, 2005 04:15 PM