Exclusive:Scottish book festival hit by funding snub for Glasgow's £1m 850th 'birthday party'

Aye Write has been shunned for city council funding for a 12-month programme of "signature events" which will be promoted under the banner of Glasgow 850. The events will celebrate the anniversary of Glasgow being granted a burgh charter by King William.

The festival was due to mark its 20th anniversary in 2025, but has been facing an uncertain future after this year's edition was scrapped just weeks before it was due to be held due in the face of a funding crisis.

Glasgow Life, the council-funded charity that runs sporting and cultural venues and events across the city, pulled the plug on Aye Write after failing to secure Scottish Government funding, via Creative Scotland, for the event this year.

Aye Write has been excluded from the Glasgow 850 signature events programme despite new funding being earmarked for events like the Celtic Connections, Piping Live! and TRNSMT music festivals, and the city's annual comedy and film festivals.

City council chiefs say Aye Write was not eligible for its Glasgow 850 festival fund because it did not have any “core funding” in place for 2025.

However, the council has agreed to support a major new three-day music festival, Clyde Chorus, which will be staged in multiple venues along the banks of the River Clyde in the spring, when Aye Write has traditionally been held.

The local authority is also backing Taste the Place, a new food trail charting the history of the city's hospitality scene, which will also be launched in the spring.

Other events receiving Glasgow 850 funding include the Mela, the Merchant City Festival and the Yardworks Festival, a celebration of "urban art and graffiti," at the SWG3 arts venue, the GlasGLOW event at the Botanic Gardens and the St Mungo Festival.

There is no mention of Aye Write on the official Glasgow 850 website, which features a message from council leader Susan Aitken pledging the events programme would help Glaswegians "share our stories about the place we love and the place we call home."

She said: "It is an opportunity for you to tell the story of your Glasgow, the Glasgow that you remember, but also the Glasgow that you want the city to become in the years ahead. We all have our own ideas about what Glasgow is, what Glasgow has been and what we want it to be. Glasgow 850 is the chance for us all to tell our own Glasgow stories and to build Glasgow's future together."

The city council said the Glasgow 850 festival fund was designed to allow existing events to “enhance” their programmes for the anniversary year and was not intended to act as core funding.

A spokeswoman said: “Eligible applicants had to have their core funding secured for next year to ensure that their festival, event or activities would run. While this posed an unfortunate timing issue for a few organisations who wanted to apply, this measure removed the risk of having huge gaps in our Glasgow 850 programming for 2025.

“Officers are, however, exploring opportunities for a phase two of the festival fund.”

Aye Write featured around 175 authors appearing in more than 120 events across ten days last year. Special guests included Val McDermid, Frankie Boyle, Darren McGarvey, Sally Magnusson, Chris Brookmyre and Liz Lochhead.

Glasgow Life has pledged that Aye Write will return in full in 2025, 2026 and 2027 if a bid to Creative Scotland for three-year government funding is successful.

A spokesman for Glasgow Life said: “While we await the results of funding applications, we are unable to make final decisions on the size and duration of Aye Write in 2025. In the meantime, we will continue to deliver a programme of one-off Aye Write events and a Wee Write programme during 2024 thanks to the support of our donors.”