The Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday February 04 2025 #Festival #Fringe #ACDC

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to arts correspondent Brian Ferguson about festivals and the upcoming only UK tour date for ACDC at Murrayfield

Transcript

00:00Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Tuesday.

00:05My name is Dale Miller.

00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.

00:08I'm joined by Arts and Culture Correspondent, Brian Ferguson.

00:12Brian, plenty happening as always, even though it's February in the world of arts and culture.

00:17We'll get to that front page of today's Scotsman Thirstly.

00:22And we land on Labor being accused of hoodwinking the public over lower energy bill claims.

00:28This was comments from John Swinney, who made the hoodwink, winking reference after the

00:34new boss of GB Energy, the public investment firm set up by the UK Labor government admitted

00:40that the GB Energy initiative would take 20 years to create the 1000 jobs promise for

00:48Aberdeen.

00:49This is in the hub.

00:52Certainly not exactly the language that was coming out of Suu Kyi's government when they

00:56won the election.

00:58So John Swinney hitting back at that.

01:00But essentially, every party was the Scottish Tories, the Greens as well, critical.

01:06And I would expect we'll hear more on that front over the next 24 hours.

01:11Anna Sower speaking today at the time of recording this and would expect there'll be some tough

01:17questions put to him about GB Energy and whether the wall has been pulled over the eyes of

01:23people that voted for Labor at last year's general election.

01:27Also, the latest on Six Nations coverage, we're eyeing a big, big match that's going to take

01:33place this weekend at Murrayfield, a Scotland hosting island, one to watch.

01:39And you can read all the latest transfer deadline details, the wrap up from the conclusion of

01:47the transfer period yesterday at Scotsman.com.

01:50Brian, arts and culture, though, we've had Celtic connections ongoing, which is coming to an

01:56end now, but it's still a busy period.

01:59And you've got a good story today with outgoing Fringe Society head Shona McCarthy.

02:05Tell us a bit about it.

02:07Yeah, so Shona's into her final weeks in the job after a kind of real rollercoaster nine years.

02:13Obviously, five years ago this year, Covid happened, the whole thing ground to a halt

02:21dramatically, along with all the other festivals and events in Scotland.

02:24So she's had a real kind of rollercoaster tenure.

02:27There's been a big battle through her whole time, really, to try and get more funding support for

02:33the Fringe, but particularly coming out of Covid when, you know, the acute financial challenges

02:38around the event have just become more serious for everyone, particularly in terms of everyone's

02:42costs, including the Fringe Society.

02:45They basically lost their very small public funding that they had, government funding, seven or eight

02:54years ago, a very controversial decision at the time when Creative Scotland basically cut a number

03:00of organisations.

03:01There was a U-turn, but not for the Fringe Society.

03:03So they've been battling ever since, really, to try and get some kind of funding recognition from

03:09the Scottish Government.

03:11There's a distinction, really, between the Fringe Society and support for Edinburgh's festivals in

03:17general.

03:17There is quite a lot of support, or has been, for Edinburgh's festivals, particularly the

03:22Edinburgh International Festival, which has always had more than two million pounds from the

03:29Scottish Government in recent years.

03:33Basically, the Fringe has been a bit of an outlier.

03:36The Fringe Society has been a bit of an outlier.

03:38They don't put on any shows or run venues, but they do run a very big operation at the heart of

03:45the event.

03:45They run the official box office website.

03:49They publish the programme still, and that has perhaps been held against them by Creative

03:54Scotland and the Scottish Government, and certainly by some of the venues.

04:00It's been an awkward relationship between the Fringe Society and pretty much everyone else

04:06over that nine-year period.

04:08It's fair to say that, as far as Shona's concerned, there's been a breakthrough in terms of the

04:14relationship with the Government in particular, and that's really come out of the increased

04:19funding for culture that the Government has been very keen to talk about in the last few

04:26weeks, culminating in a big announcement last week, obviously, with the money that's been

04:32made available to pretty much every major arts company, festival, venue and event in the

04:38country.

04:39There was one glaring omission from that list of more than 260 different organisations.

04:46It was the Fringe Society.

04:47There wasn't a penny announced last week, once again.

04:52But Shona is adamant that there has been an acknowledgement at the highest level of the

04:58Government that the phrase she's used over the last year, that the Fringe Society has

05:05somehow fallen through the cracks in terms of public funding, she's told me in a really

05:12interesting chat the other day that there's been a breakthrough on that, there has been

05:15a commitment that that will be addressed, and there will be support for the Fringe Society

05:20out of new ring-fenced funding that's available.

05:24There's £4 million that's been set aside by the Government to bolster the ring-fenced

05:32funding for festivals.

05:33Now, that will be supporting events across the country, but the Fringe Society says they

05:40have a clear commitment that they will be getting some of that.

05:45There are some tensions around that.

05:48It's not all been finalised.

05:50Certainly, as far as a lot of the big venues are concerned, who are really obviously powerful

05:55and very influential, they want to see that funding support come directly to them.

06:01They want to bypass the Fringe Society and really believe that they've been far too influential.

06:08I've really expanded too much over the years, and they are separately trying to lobby the

06:16Government for direct support for them.

06:19There will be a lot of debate around that whole picture, basically, and who's right

06:24and who's wrong.

06:25But I think the Government does seem to have acknowledged that for the Fringe Society to

06:33get no support when every other arts organisation in the country does have support, there's

06:38something wrong with that.

06:40So, Creative Scotland didn't really feel that the Fringe Society met their funding

06:47criteria, but that was all said.

06:51I think that really was the catalyst for the Government to have a proper look at this,

06:56at the same time as the Government has obviously instigated a review of Creative Scotland,

07:01but also the whole wider culture sector and how it's supported.

07:06That review, the Government's promised that there'll be something back on that in the

07:10summer.

07:11I'd imagine by then we'll see the details of this support for the Fringe.

07:18It's a bizarre scenario where a lot of people in Edinburgh, particularly in terms of local

07:24politicians, see the Fringe as a huge money-making machine that is a huge success story.

07:33And the feeling is that maybe the city in general doesn't really see as many spin-offs

07:40as possible.

07:40But I think the reality behind the scenes is that the Fringe Society as an organisation

07:45has struggled financially in the last few years, but also anyone trying to put on shows

07:50at the Fringe has become harder and harder in the last few years to make that happen.

07:56And we see a lot of things that come out of nowhere all the time.

08:01You know, the new rules on short-term letting, for example, seem to have made it more difficult

08:06for people to find accommodation.

08:09And then another new thing that's been added to the mix, there was a big announcement

08:12yesterday that made this even more difficult is that the Scottish Rugby Union have been

08:18putting on, really ramped up the number of concerts that are on over the summer.

08:24Some of them are now filtering into August, so we've now got both Oasis and ACDC putting

08:30on huge shows that will, you know, the Oasis ones will be sold out.

08:34There's no doubt ACDC will be sold out.

08:36So that's another thing that's going to potentially make it harder for audiences and

08:41artists to come to Edinburgh at the same time.

08:44But, you know, I think it's long overdue that the Scottish Government address this

08:51situation, basically, because the inescapable fact is that the Fringe is by far the biggest

08:57event in terms of the number of performers and tickets sold, but it's also by far the

09:04biggest and most high-profile event Scotland has.

09:08So Shona will be hoping that there's a bit of a legacy there when she leaves the job

09:13in a few weeks' time.

09:14It's a good reminder there, Brian, not to take anything for granted, including the Fringe,

09:20clearly one of the biggest arts events on the calendar each year.

09:25Brian, I know you're bringing us more news around the Fringe in the next 24 hours.

09:30Please tune into the Scotsman site first thing Wednesday morning for all the latest on that

09:36front.

09:37You can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and Blue Sky, and please go ahead and pick

09:42up a copy of Tomorrow's Scotsman for all the very latest in the arts and culture scene

09:48here in Scotland.

09:49Brian, thanks to you and thanks to everyone for joining us.

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