Arts diary: Edinburgh's TV Festival loss is chilling warning for a city which cannot rest on its laurels

Today, after 50 years, the Edinburgh TV Festival has announced it is to move to Greater Manchester, citing “increasing challenges” around rising costs in the Scottish capital.

The decision is a stark warning for Edinburgh’s festivals. Just last week, Anthony Alderson, director of the Pleasance Fringe venues, told me he feared the TV Festival’s (then potential) plans to relocate were “the canary in the coal mine” for the overall sector.

Spiralling accommodation costs, coupled with - particularly for events such as the Fringe with pop-up venues - increased red tape surrounding planning rules, are making it impossible for festivals to make a profit, or even break even.

Indeed, the Edinburgh TV Festival - which is now, unsurprisingly, to lose the “Edinburgh” in its name - has spelled it out, saying the move will allow it to “radically reduce” the costs associated with attending the event, specifying that the cost of passes for delegates will be significantly lower in Manchester.

Other venue operators have echoed Alderson’s words, with Assembly director William Burdett-Coutts telling an industry audience earlier this month that the Fringe was experiencing the hardest years in its history. Meanwhile, Underbelly founder Charlie Wood warned that the Fringe is becoming “a date on a tour schedule” as the skyrocketing costs mean an increasing number of artists opt to cut their Edinburgh run to just a couple of days, pointing out the £25,000 a month this year asked for for a three-bedroom flat he had previously rented.

Many artists are no longer able to even contemplate an Edinburgh Fringe run due to the cost of three weeks in Edinburgh, while the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which splits the cost of housing authors with their publishing houses, has warned those represented by smaller publishers could be priced out of attending the event in future.

Somewhat chillingly, Alderson told me he believed Edinburgh would “miss them when they’re gone”, referring to the festivals as a whole.

The Edinburgh International Festival and with it, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, were founded almost 80 years ago following the devastation of the Second World War, through a vision that people from across the world should be reunited through great art.

For many across the globe, the word Edinburgh is synonymous with festivals.

It is “the festival city”, it hosts the world’s biggest arts festival, I could go on further in that vein.

But what the TV Festival’s announcement has proven, is that it does not always have to be - if the economic conditions are necessary for the events to move elsewhere.

The festival did not exclude Edinburgh from the competitive bidding process, in fact, it was given the chance as one of three shortlisted cities from a larger number of places which put in an initial bid, to prove its worth as the rightful location for the event, alongside the winner and fellow runner-up, Newcastle.

But the city failed. And the TV Festival board refused to do what everyone expected it to do: to fall back on the history and heritage - and ultimately the cache - that Edinburgh has in the festivals world.

Fatima Salaria, chair of the Festival board, made her reasoning clear. “This decision had to balance legacy with future opportunity,” she said.

Festivals bosses have called for “common sense” around accommodation, which has seen major changes in terms of short term letting rules. The Edinburgh Visitor Levy has also been a double-edged sword, hiking accommodation costs up by five percent, while simultaneously promising to plough the money back into the economy, but for festivals, that benefit has not yet been made clear.

Former culture secretary Angus Robertson vowed “interventions” over accommodation costs in an interview with me last summer, but has now left office with not a sniff of what they might have been, despite me reminding him of them every time we met.

We have lost the TV Festival. This needs to be a warning shot to the authorities that action needs to be taken - and quickly - before we lose more.