The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday April 02 2025 #EdFringe

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Wednesday.

00:04My name is Dale Miller.

00:05I'm deputy editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our arts and culture correspondent

00:10Jane Bradley.

00:11And Jane, the sun's shining into April and it's got me thinking about the summer and

00:17the festival and everything that we can get out and see.

00:21We'll talk about that shortly.

00:23But firstly, front page of today's Scotsman and it's hard to ignore what Donald Trump

00:28has branded Liberation Day.

00:31At 9pm UK time, he is expected to announce tariffs.

00:36They are expected to effectively hit all of the UK, including Scottish exports, whiskey,

00:45as well as things like Scottish salmon are expected to be affected.

00:49There's been warnings via the Fraser of Allander about the economic turbulence that this will

00:53cause and that tariffs will be a massive factor.

00:56It could also wipe out some of that wriggle room that Rachel Reeves was trying to build

01:03into the budget planning at her.

01:06And it could make things very difficult come later this year when she needs to try to balance

01:11the books again.

01:13And will we see more spending cuts or more impact otherwise?

01:16So watch Scotsman.com throughout this evening.

01:20We will be covering the impact of the tariffs and what it means for you and what it means

01:24for Scotland.

01:25But Jane, I want to get you on and talk about something that might cheer us up a little

01:29bit more.

01:30Maybe not the first story, of course, but we'll get on the festival shortly.

01:35You wrote an interesting one about the Beltane Fire Festival, which I think a lot of people

01:40will know from the pictures and the vision that emerges every year.

01:44But the organisers are not happy.

01:47Yeah, that's right.

01:48I mean, the Beltane Fire Festival yesterday sort of announced what it's got on for this

01:52year, the usual sort of spectacular, which, you know, as you say, everyone's seen the

01:55pictures.

01:56It's an absolutely amazing event.

01:57But one thing they're really not happy about is new rules which have been brought in by

02:02Edinburgh Council, which came into effect in January, which basically mean there is

02:06a tax, like a levy on all tickets of events, commercial events that are held in what Edinburgh

02:13calls its premier parks.

02:14Now, that's the kind of big parks that you would think of, Holyrood Park, Inverleith

02:19Park, the Meadows and Calton Hill is included in that.

02:23Now, Beltane, which takes place on Calton Hill, says it is the only sort of major event

02:28like that that takes place on Calton Hill.

02:30So it is the only festival that's being affected by Calton Hill being included in this group.

02:36And it says really it's a community event.

02:38It's actually a charity.

02:39Now Edinburgh Council does have exemptions for charities and community events, but it

02:43says that Beltane doesn't fall into this category because it sells tickets that are more than

02:48£9, which Beltane says it has to do to be able to provide a safe event with the requisite

02:54kind of security and so on.

02:56And also it has a sort of commercial element to it because there's a couple of stalls that

03:00sell hot drinks and so on for people who are going to the festival.

03:04So it does count as a commercial event, and it has to pay this levy.

03:09And they're basically saying this is an attack on them, and they're saying that generally

03:12this tax is a big problem for smaller events, community events that are going to have to

03:18take this on.

03:20Yeah, definitely interesting, Jane.

03:21I'd like to see a bit of a list about other events that are impacted.

03:26Beltane is one that I think everyone knows and it's well attended every year.

03:30So watch this space, I think, to see whether the pushback against the council achieves

03:36any success. We know the City Council is under significant financial pressure at the moment

03:41and was one council across Scotland, as with many others, that lifted council tax by a

03:47considerable amount, with Falkirk leading the way with a 15.8% odd council tax increase

03:55that will be hitting a lot of people as we start this month.

03:59Jane, I said we'd talk about slightly nicer things, and there's more shows out from the

04:03festival. Actually, I'm surprised when I looked at just how many shows are available to

04:08book. Can you just run us through just briefly a little bit of what's out there and what

04:13venues have already put shows out for this year?

04:16Yeah, I mean, all the kind of major venue groups, the ones you think of, Guild Balloon,

04:20Pleasance, Assembly, so on, have already had at least one and in some case two of what

04:24they call their on-sales, which is when they release a sort of list of names and a list

04:30of what's on. They sort of release them in tranches and then those particular shows go

04:34on sale. Often it's kind of bigger name shows that are kind of set up well in advance than

04:38maybe in the bigger venues, and the Fringe itself also puts out a list of kind of on-sale

04:43shows. So, I mean, we've got hundreds of shows already on sale.

04:48I think yesterday, Pleasance put out its latest tranche of on-sale, and that included a

04:54musical called Hot Mess, which is tipped to be one of the kind of big shows of the Fringe

04:58this year, and that is a climate change focused musical about the earth trying to find its

05:04perfect partner in humanity.

05:06So it's apparently absolutely brilliant.

05:08So we'll have to see what that's like.

05:11We've also got La Clique, which is obviously a very, very well-known show at the Fringe,

05:17and that's returning to the Spiegel tent for the first time in a while.

05:24So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot going to be going on.

05:26There's a lot of comedians, a lot of the usual sort of names and faces and a lot of new

05:31faces as well.

05:33There obviously has been issues in the last few years of especially kind of smaller scale

05:38performers, perhaps people who've not got huge publicity machines behind them and so on,

05:42struggling to find the funds to actually come to the Fringe.

05:45And they're the kind of people who perhaps have not announced their shows yet because

05:48they're trying to work out how they can get accommodation, how they can get things together

05:51to come, and they haven't announced that their tickets are on sale yet.

05:55So there has been a lot of issues around that.

05:57Again, this year, the Fringe has already put out a sort of renewed call for people to host

06:02an artist in their homes during the festival.

06:05And this is an initiative the Fringe Society has put forward.

06:08They have done it most years, but they haven't really put out a call and sort of said to

06:12people, we really need you to do this.

06:14Please get involved since before the pandemic.

06:17And that means people can charge people to stay in their homes.

06:20They can rent out a room and, you know, hopefully that will find some spots for

06:24accommodation for performers that they wouldn't otherwise have.

06:28That's been allowed to happen in a more widespread way this year because Edinburgh

06:32Council, again, has relaxed its rules slightly around short term lets.

06:36So people who want to rent out a room for a very short period are potentially allowed to

06:42do so without applying for a full short term licence, which is obviously the kind of Airbnb

06:46style crackdown we've seen in the last couple of years.

06:49And also, there's quite a lot of issues being talked about around the Fringe, around

06:54infrastructure and so on. Shona McCarthy, the outgoing Fringe Society chief executive, has

06:58talked about that at length in the last few months.

07:00And there has been a new group set up with the Scottish government, Edinburgh Council and

07:05representatives from quite a lot of the major festivals and festival venues to talk about

07:09how they can get that kind of thing sorted.

07:12Some of the issues Shona had discussed were things like why don't mobile phones work in

07:16Edinburgh in August?

07:18The networks are just absolutely overwhelmed.

07:20There's many, many times more people here than there usually is.

07:23And things like that, you're just not getting signals.

07:25So there should be infrastructure and money put into that kind of thing to make it easier.

07:30To be fair, I've experienced some of those non-sports just anywhere in Scotland where you

07:34would expect mobile phones to work as well.

07:37Look, it'll be fascinating as well.

07:39I know that that scheme to allow someone to stay or a performer, for example, in your home

07:45comes with a charge to the Edinburgh Council as well.

07:48So I'll be fascinated.

07:50A smaller charge, obviously, than if you are having to put in the full short term letting

07:54application and a lot less arduous than that.

07:56But there is a small charge.

07:57The fringe says, obviously, you can obviously charge the person who's staying in your home.

08:03And, you know, they ask people to be sort of sensible with what they charge because that's

08:09been one of the major issues, this spiralling cost of accommodation.

08:12But yeah, they say, you know, you can recoup the amount of money that you need to pay to be

08:16allowed to do that.

08:17You can read all the stories that Jane and I have spoken about at Scotsman.com.

08:23Please follow us on all social media channels and pick up a copy of Tomorrow's Scotsman

08:29where we will bring you the fallout from whatever Donald Trump announces tonight around

08:33tariffs. Thank you, Jane, and thank you to everyone else for joining us.

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