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At a press conference for the Sarajevo film festival in the early 1990s, its founder, the Bosnian director Haris Pašović, was asked why he set up such a festival during the war. His reply, he told the Los Angeles Times, was: “Why the war during the film festival?” Sarajevo under siege is an extreme example, but the point is that arts festivals matter, especially during times of crisis.
Covid, austerity and sponsorship issues have left even the most successful festivals in the UK struggling. This week Shona McCarthy, the outgoing chief executive of the Edinburgh festival fringe, argued that the fringe should be given the same support as major sporting events like the Olympics. This follows warnings from Nicola Benedetti, a classical violinist and director of the fringe’s parent, the international festival, that its world-class status is threatened by funding cuts.
It is a similar story for Edinburgh book festival. Like many of the UK’s biggest literary festivals, it has been hit by the loss of sponsorship from the investment management company Baillie Gifford, over its links to companies involved in the fossil fuel industry and Israel. The Hay literary festival, dubbed “the Woodstock of the mind” by Bill Clinton in 2001, is also under serious threat.
Founded in 1947 in a spirit of postwar optimism, the Edinburgh fringe is the world’s largest arts festival, selling 2.6m tickets last year. Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, Steve Coogan, Hannah Gadsby and Scotland’s own Billy Connolly all started out here. In 1966, legend has it, a play titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by an unknown playwright was performed to an audience of one. More recently, spin-off TV hits include This is Going to Hurt, Baby Reindeer and Fleabag, whose creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, has said that “the Edinburgh fringe changed my life”.
The fact that the fringe, unlike most festivals, is not centrally curated or funded (each show is the responsibility of its producers) doesn’t mean that it is without costs. Chaos was always part of its let’s-put-on-a-show ethos, but it is not a sound business strategy. Today, performers can’t afford to stay in Edinburgh, punters can’t book tickets due to poor wifi, and it is difficult for everyone to get around. It is no joke.
Large-scale events require infrastructure and investment. Glasgow is only hosting the Commonwealth Games again next year because the Australian state of Victoria pulled out, blaming rising costs. Edinburgh’s new tourism tax, along with later trains and the use of university accommodation brought in by Ms McCarthy, will help the fringe in practical ways. But more needs to be done to save its spirit. Tony Lankester, who takes over next month, must ensure that it is not just hotels and Airbnb owners who are laughing all the way to the bank.
Cultural institutions like the fringe are about more than making money and stars. In our age of disinformation, artificial intelligence and alienation, such gatherings of people, talent and ideas are more vital than ever. As the novelist Elif Shafak observed after the attack on Salman Rushdie as he walked on stage at an arts festival in New York in 2022, they are “one of our last remaining democratic spaces” where one can both speak one’s mind freely and hear someone else’s story. Let’s give them a sporting chance.
