THE EDINBURGH Festival Fringe Society continues to operate at a loss as increased costs and shortage of funding continue to be persistent challenges.
The Society’s annual review reveals it has been operating at a loss since 2021, with the past year’s income coming in at £5.53m, and an expenditure of £5.76m.
Its outgoing chief executive has expressed frustration over a lack of core funding for the “Olympic scale” festival, particularly from the Scottish Government.
Funding has not been granted since 2018 for the annual event, which sold 2.6 million tickets for over 3,700 shows running in August, a 30% increase from last year.
Shona McCarthy, who is due to step down from the chief executive role in March, alluded to consistently needing to make a case for supporting the festival as a reason for her departure.
Despite the Edinburgh International Festival receiving £2.3m per year from the government, the Fringe Society has received nothing, despite repeated applications.
She claimed that the message that Edinburgh is a “crucible” and an “ecosystem” for performing arts, with vast opportunities, is never heard.
The festival suffered a further funding blow this year, following the closure of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals due to uncertainty over government budgets.
This affected the wider culture sector, with Creative Scotland forced to delay hundreds of funding applications after the government failed to commit a budget to the programme.
A “strategic partnership” to financially support festivals in Scotland was launched by culture secretary Angus Robertson in August, but further details are yet to be announced.
However, £7m in funding from the UK Government has allowed for the development of a new headquarters for the Fringe Society, due to open in late 2025.
With Scotland at the bottom of a European league table for arts spending, a new campaign has been launched demanding the government “follow through” on promised investment.
Currently, investment in arts and culture accounts for just 0.56% of its overall budget, compared to the European average of 1.5%.
McCarthy emphasised her fear for Edinburgh as a cultural capital, and more widely for the jobs, infrastructure and programming that goes into the festival every year.
In the annual review, she said: “We deliver an event of Olympic scale, and much wider impact, every single year, but we are doing it without core funding or a supportive policy environment.
“Come on Scotland. You can make this right.”
