Fringe by the Sea boss launches blistering attack on Creative Scotland and condemns ‘dire’ funding

Fringe By The Sea, which is said to be worth more than £7.3 million to the East Lothian economy, has hit out at the “dire” levels of red tape faced by event organisers trying to secure vital backing.

The team behind the North Berwick-based event has attacked the Scottish Government’s arts funding body Creative Scotland after being snubbed months after being named Scotland’s “outstanding cultural event” at the national tourism awards.

Fringe By The Sea director Rory Steel suggested this year’s festival was also expected to be the last to be funded by the government agency EventScotland, which supports both sporting and cultural events.

He highlighted how more than 50 events had vanished from the UK’s festival landscape in recent years due to a perfect storm of factors, including “skyrocketing” costs, Covid and Brexit.

Writing in The Scotsman today, Mr Steel said Fringe By The Sea prided itself on keeping its events as affordable as possible, but needed investment from both the public and private sector to keep its ethos intact and survive in future years.

He said: “We were proud to step up to the stage at the VisitScotland Thistle Awards last year to collect the gong for the best 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 an EventScotland grant.

"We understand there are public spending restrictions and know our plight is common amongst event organisers.

“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.

“At a time when resources are tight, money should be going to the organisations that deliver for communities.

"We were turned down twice by Creative Scotland's adjudication panel, 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.”

Mr Steel said the events industry was also grappling with the “brutal impact” of the withdrawal of major commercial sponsors like Baillie Gifford and Barclays. Fringe By The Sea, which was first staged in 2008, attracted a record attendance of 74,750 in 2023, up almost a third on the 2022 festival.

He added: “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.”

Singers, bands, musicians, writers and performers, to appear in recent years include Sister Sledge, Travis, Dara O’Briain, Groove Armada, Lulu, Basement Jaxx, Gail Porter, Irvine Welsh, Barbara Dickson, Janey Godley, Mica Paris and Val McDermid.

The Jacksons, Idlewild, Ash, Susie McCabe, Adam Hills, Del Amitri and David O’Doherty are all due to appear at this year’s event, which runs from 2-11 August.

A spokeswoman for Creative Scotland said a total of £53,033 had been awarded to Fringe By The Sea between 2019 and 2023.

A spokeswoman for EventScotland said it had awarded £131,150 to Fringe By The Sea since 2010, including for this year’s event.

She added: “A limit of three rounds of funding applies for our national events programme.

"This was reset in 2022 after Covid and any events that had previously received three rounds of funding prior to this was able to re-apply to the fund.

“As this year is the third round of funding for Fringe By The Sea, they will not be eligible to apply to this fund again.

"The national events programme is designed to support the strategic development of events by supporting innovative new projects and activity at events.”