Edinburgh International Festival ‘facing uncertain future’

The Edinburgh International Festival is facing an “uncertain” future until it receives news on funding, a festival spokesperson has said.

The BBC reports that the festival’s public funding has declined by 40% in the past decade despite running costs trebling over the same period. It is yet to have future funding commitments confirmed by Creative Scotland.

“Like hundreds of other organisations across Scotland, we face uncertainty as we await the results of Creative Scotland’s [multi-year funding] decisions, which were delayed to align with the Scottish government’s budgetary process,” the spokesperson added.

“High inflation, rising costs and 17 years of standstill funding has placed all arts and culture organisations across the country in tough and uncertain circumstances and multi-year funding commitments are critical to enable us to plan ahead.”

A decision on funding for the next three years had been expected in October but has been put off until January as Creative Scotland will not know its budget until after the Scottish government’s budget in December.