STAGE FRIGHT

Edinburgh’s International Festival has struggled to get sponsors, but the show will go on.

WORDS BY THOM DIBDIN

GRAND FINALE OF THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
© PETER SANDGROUND

HIGH ART HAS ALWAYS DEMANDED – IF NOT always received – high levels of financial support. The world’s greatest Churches, monarchies and states have all basked in art’s reflected glory and paid artists to create works in their names. It’s no different today, except now the world’s foremost arts sponsors are international banks and insurance companies, and, as we know, they don’t have the disposable cash they once did.

This August Edinburgh holds its International Festival for the 63rd time, and it has had to resolve some tricky sponsorship issues. The world’s most famous arts festival has been awash with corporate branding in previous years, but in 2009 it looks like things could be different. As Edinburgh’s festivals and events champion Steve Cardownie admits: “When things are tight for business, one of the first casualties is sponsorship – cultural sponsorship.”

Indeed, there have already been casualties. The long-running Fringe Sunday, the biggest event at the Festival Fringe, has been cancelled after failing to find a sponsor. The free, one-day event at which performers from the non-curated Fringe show off their wares, has struggled to find a sponsor for the past few years, but organisers have finally admitted defeat for 2009. And Edinburgh’s biggest comedy award – once known as the Perrier but more recently rebranded the Intelligent Finance Comedy Awards – is without a sponsor after the finance company decided not to renew at the end of its three-year contract.

Yet Cardownie remains optimistic about the long-term future of the Festival. “The cultural sector in this city is something that people want to be associated with as a feel-good factor,” he says. “The arts make people feel good and that is very important, especially in the midst of a recession.”

The organisers say that the cancellation of Fringe Sunday is a temporary measure, and that they expect it to return in the future. And they have good reason for their optimism; while some parts of the Fringe have become bloated and needy of corporate sponsorship, one of the beauties of the Fringe is that it can be micro-financed. With performers willing to travel from all over the world, paying their own expenses and sleeping on floors, Edinburgh still has enough small, accessible venues that don’t need the patronage of corporate sponsors. The quality of the Festival’s reputation and the flexibility and loyalty of its performers will help to ensure that this year is a success.

That’s not to say that the festivals are going to be impoverished. Even in the middle of a vicious recession they have retained many big name sponsors, in particular the beleaguered Scottish financial institutions that have traditionally funded the backbone events. For example, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Fringe sponsorship allows the Royal Mile to become a pedestrianised throng of street performers, with every pillar and post taken over by a performer hawking their show. And the International Festival is staging some 75 different productions with a total budget of €10.64m. No micro-sponsorship deals here, then. Instead, the Bank of Scotland gets its name in the headline of the annual Fireworks Concert, while Lloyds TSB is providing funds for a strand of opera and ballet.

International Festival organisers say they reached their sponsorship target of €2.41m (including donations) quickly and the show will go on, this year at least. All concerned will be hoping for a financial recovery that encourages big name investors to return next year, especially since this year’s public sector investment of €5.6m is certain to be questioned for next year’s events. That’s a lot of reflected glory to be found.

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