If Creative Scotland didn’t pay its staff millions, there’d be more money for struggling festivals

It seemed like such a good idea – to take something already established and help move it onto a new level. In 2008, there had been 12 performances over three days during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s first weekend; in 2018 we planned to extend this to ten days and over 100 events, and we had just months to pull it off.

Six years on from the first time we produced Fringe By The Sea, to say things have changed in the festival world is quite an understatement. According to the Association of Independent Festivals, 50 independent music festivals in the UK have either been cancelled, postponed or closed down in 2024. Such a downturn has been noted internationally, with the Hollywood Reporter calling it “an unprecedented crisis”. 

The situation has been created by a perfect storm of the fall-out from Brexit, Covid and the huge rise in production costs. Everything from generator hire to booking talent has skyrocketed. As a small, not-for-profit festival with community at its heart, we can't expect the public to pay for these increases with huge price rises. We pride ourselves in making our events as affordable as possible.

Award won, funding denied

For events such as ours to keep their ethos and survive, we need investment from both the public and private sector. I can’t think of a festival that can survive on ticket revenue alone.

We have grown annually, delivered amazing community projects and in 2023 generated £7.3m of economic benefit for the region. Public funding from Event Scotland and others has been critical to this success – as is other funding. We're fortunate to have Berwick Trust continue their support for the next three years with grants totalling £96,000.

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Last year, we were proud to step up to the stage at the VisitScotland Thistle Awards to collect the gong for the best festival/cultural event. However, we were then turned down for funding from Creative Scotland to deliver our major 2024 community project and it’s likely this will be the last year that we receive a grant from Event Scotland. We understand there are public spending restrictions, and know our plight is common amongst event organisers.

Extraordinarily high staffing costs

However, there is a need to look at why arts funding is being squeezed, including inefficiencies in the way some of the funding bodies are run. Staffing costs seem extraordinarily high for the amounts of money being distributed. For example, the Culture and Business Fund, which receives over £200,000 from Creative Scotland, handed out £155,000 in financial year 2022/23, of which Fringe By The Sea received a very welcome £22,000.

The Fund's wage bill was double the amount handed out. I understand that there are other aspects to the fund's organisation, but at a time when resources are tight, money should be going to the organisations that deliver for communities. In 2022/23, Creative Scotland’s salary bill was £5,262,000 with £307,000 for other staff costs and £2,844,000 towards operating costs.

With public money in decline, organisations like ours need to work hard to secure corporate funding. This is additionally difficult when marketing is the first thing to feel the pinch in tough economic conditions. The last thing we need are arduous forms and dire approval processes that take up huge amounts of time. Why can't there be a consistent approach to applications from these different government funding bodies?

A lot to learn

Our Creative Scotland applications are around 25,000 words and it takes 14 weeks for them to be processed. Of course, we need to be prudent with public money, but we need to find a better balance and faster response rates.

Event Scotland’s process is relatively smooth and there’s great dialogue with their administrators. The process is constructive, with well-formulated feedback about decisions. They have also been proactive in finding other business development opportunities for our organisation, namely Fringe By The Tee at the Scottish Open Golf event.

Creative Scotland has a lot to learn from them. We were turned down twice by Creative Scotland's adjudication panel for our community projects, despite a recommendation for approval. The process seems more of a lottery than a true analysis of what is a huge amount of work by organisers. I truly feel for someone with no experience of trying to secure Creative Scotland funding.

For many bigger, established festivals with large companies providing much of the financial support, the past year has been brutal. With Baillie Gifford pulling out of sponsoring book festivals and Barclays Bank from music festivals, it’s difficult to imagine who will put their head above the parapet to step into their place. We work hard to secure partners with strong local connections, like John Clark Volvo, SSE Renewables, GoFibre, Coulters estate agents and The Lighthouse. 

Huge economic impact

What is not always taken into account is the huge amount of income live entertainment brings in. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is reckoned to have brought almost £1bn to the UK economy. The Edinburgh Fringe is worth over £400m to Edinburgh. Last year even our little festival’s economic impact report showed we boosted the East Lothian economy by more than £7m.

There are a lot of businesses making a lot of money on the back of these events, which is a great additional benefit to the main one – bringing people together for a shared enjoyment of the arts.

What the future holds for us and other festivals in Scotland is in the air, but I wouldn’t swap the experience that Fringe By The Sea gives us every year for anything. Well, apart from some funding from Creative Scotland.

Rory Steel is director of Fringe By The Sea in North Berwick, which this year runs from 2-11 August