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Funding for Edinburgh festivals
10/03/2009
Edinburgh's 12 festivals are to benefit from £2 million during 2009-10.
Announcing this year's Expo Fund allocation, Minister for Culture Michael Russell said that 'Edinburgh's Festivals continue to create a unique showcase promoting the best of Scottish work to an international audience'.
Part of the allocation includes an award of £250,000 to the Edinburgh Art Festival over two years.
Mr Russell said: 
"Edinburgh is the pre-eminent festival capital of the world and its festivals make a significant contribution to our economy, attracting visitors to Scotland from around the world. Our Expo Fund is designed to help maintain the global competitive edge of the festivals and to increase funding available to Scottish-based artists and practitioners. Last year's funding enabled the creation of a wide array of high quality artistic collaborations which premiered throughout the year, promoting the best of Scottish talent at home and abroad.
"We are determined to ensure that the Edinburgh Festivals continue to flourish. This year's allocation of just over £2 million will support ambitious projects from each of the 12 festivals and demonstrate the importance this Government places on creativity and artistic endeavours.
"I'm delighted to award £250,000 to the Art Festival over two years to establish a commissioning fund for new work by Scottish-based artists which will be premiered to an international audience at next year's festival. This project will allow new creative and imaginative collaborations, promoting Scotland's international reputation as a flourishing centre for the visual arts."
Faith Liddell, Director of Festivals Edinburgh said:
"Festivals Edinburgh is enormously grateful for the Scottish Government's investment in the programming ambition of Edinburgh's renowned Festivals and for the opportunities it continues to offer for the presentation of new and important work on the international platforms that our festivals uniquely provide. The Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund will allow our directors to create a rich portfolio of projects that represents the largest and most important showcase of Scottish work and talent ever presented here."
Joanne Brown Edinburgh Art Festival Director said:
"We are very grateful and delighted for this award from the Scottish Government's Expo Fund. The approach that the Government has taken in their support towards the Edinburgh Art Festival and those that the Festival works in partnership with is a real breath of fresh air and is an example of innovative thinking to maintain the Edinburgh Festivals unique international offer. This grant will enable the Edinburgh Art Festival to raise awareness of Edinburgh and Scotland's visual art sector and give visitors to the Festival in 2010 an unsurpassed experience of Scottish visual art."
The planned expenditure for the Edinburgh Festivals Expo fund is £6 million over three years (2008-2009 to 2010-2011).
Resources of £2.046m have been allocated in 2009-10 across the 12 festivals. Resources of £1.308 million were allocated in 2008-09. The assessment process and funding is administered by the Scottish Arts Council.
The Expo fund is available to the 12 member Festivals of Festivals Edinburgh to support the development of Scottish-based work.
The main role for coordinating and delivering the portfolio of Expo projects falls to Festivals Edinburgh, led by Faith Liddell. A panel comprising members of the Thundering Hooves steering group and Festivals Forum has recommended the projects for funding in 2009-10.
Festivals Edinburgh is a high-level organisation created by the directors of Edinburgh's 12 major festivals to take the lead on their joint strategic development and to look at over-arching areas of mutual interest.
The Art Festival will receive £250,000 over the next two years of which £150,000 is to be used to set up the Commissioning Fund. The other £100,000 will be used to work with visiting delegations, curators and media in promoting the work.
Supportive quotes
Festivals Edinburgh
"Festivals Edinburgh is enormously grateful for the Scottish Government's investment in the programming ambition of Edinburgh's renowned Festivals and for the opportunities it continues to offer for the presentation of new and important work on the international platforms that our festivals uniquely provide. The Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund will allow our directors to create a rich portfolio of projects that represents the largest and most important showcase of Scottish work and talent ever presented here."
Faith Liddell, Director Festivals Edinburgh
Edinburgh International Book Festival
"The Scottish Government's Festivals Expo Fund is an exciting and innovative development which has allowed the Edinburgh International Book Festival to work with Scottish writers and poets to create new Scottish work which has been presented to audiences both here in Edinburgh, the world's first UNESCO City of Literature, across Scotland and internationally. We very much look forward to the opportunity to extending this vital area of our work, promoting the strength, diversity and excellence of Scottish literature at home and abroad."
Kath Mainland, Administrative Director, Edinburgh International Book Festival
"Investing time, planning and money in ensuring a future of Scottish Literary Art is time, planning and money invested in hope. However straitened the times, perhaps especially in straitened times, writers are our voice. They are what we dare to express, what we dare to confront, what we dare to imagine. Support for that is in everyone's interests, and I thank the Scottish Government for its commitment to providing that support through the Festivals Edinburgh Expo Fund."
Janice Galloway
Author of fineday; commissioned by the Edinburgh International Book Festival and published in Lights off the Quay, a collection of work from four of Scotland's finest writers, supported through the 2008 Scottish Government's Festivals Expo Fund.
Edinburgh's Hogmanay
"Edinburgh's Hogmanay welcomes the continuing support of the Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund. The New Year period is a wonderful time, and Edinburgh the perfect place, to showcase Scottish creative talent. A huge international audience descends upon the capital city and the eyes of the world's media are on us. Expectations are always high and the Expo Fund will allow us to broaden even further the appeal of the festival by presenting new , quality, Scottish-originated entertainment."
Norman Ireland , Director, Edinburgh's Hogmanay
Scottish International Storytelling Festival
"Scotland has an acclaimed role in the worldwide revival of live storytelling and the Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund has enabled the Scottish International Storytelling Festival to link into events around the globe. The Festival Expo Fund boosts Scottish storytelling as storytellers across the world come together in a shared celebration of heritage, humour and the fragile ecologies of nature and culture on which we all depend."
Donald Smith, Director, Scottish International Storytelling Festival
"The Storytelling Festival is the inspiring hearth for Scottish storytelling -- and a beacon for the storytelling renaissance worldwide" David Campbell, Scottish Storyteller
Edinburgh International Festival
"The Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund is a hugely welcome initiative, enabling the Edinburgh International Festival to enhance its collaborations with the very best Scottish artists and companies. The fund enables us to develop projects which would not otherwise be possible, offering the very best international platform for Scotland's world class artists. "
Jonathan Mills, Director Edinburgh International Festival
Bank Of Scotland Imaginate Festival
The Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival is delighted by the Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund. This will allow us to develop our work with some of the best and brightest talent working in performing arts for children and young people in Scotland and to build on the worldwide success we already enjoy.
Tony Reekie, Director, The Bank Of Scotland Imaginate Festival
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
"The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is delighted with the Scottish Government's generous support through the Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund. The Fringe is an enormous success story for Edinburgh, for Scotland and worldwide, attracting an annual audience of 1.7 million people. The support from the Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund will allow the Fringe to work in partnership with the Federation of Scottish Theatre and Scottish Arts Council to encourage and support performing artists based in Scotland to present their best and most ambitious work at the Fringe and to increase opportunities for them to tour their work overseas. As cities around the world increasingly recognise the value of setting up and supporting festivals, the Festival Fringe is grateful to the Government for recognising that this kind of investment is necessary so it can remain both the leading fringe festival and the world's largest arts festival."
Tim Hawkins, General Manager Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Tina Rasmussen (Made in Scotland panel member):
"As Artistic Director of World Stage and Director of Performing Arts at Canada's foremost contemporary arts centre, Harbourfront Centre, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is an important destination on my annual travel schedule. I can count on discovering the most exciting contemporary performance and trends being created from artists from around the world.
I have a deep interest in work being generated from Scottish artists within the milieu of the biggest arts festival in the world and am delighted that Made in Scotland will be supporting opportunities for more homegrown work to claim a prominence within the Fringe.
Having been involved in the panel which had the challenging job of selecting the work to be presented in this showcase, I am excited about the quality and range of performance that is being developed in Scotland at this time and look forward to experiencing it in August."
Julie Ellen, Chair of the Federation of Scottish Theatre:
"As the membership body for theatre and dance in Scotland, the Federation of Scottish Theatre is delighted to be a partner in Made in Scotland. There is a rich diversity of performance work being created in Scotland and this is a fantastic opportunity for it to be showcased at the largest arts festival in the world. Made in Scotland will raise the profile and expand the opportunities for the companies who will be involved and is an exciting development for the sector. Scottish theatre and dance is building a deserved reputation internationally and Made in Scotland will help more Scottish practitioners present their work on the world stage."