The Future of the Edinburgh Festivals

Mark, thanks for posting your op-ed from The Independent with suggestion of collapsing Edinburgh's Summer festivals into a three week festival. (And yes Sian Williams is one to look out for).

You may be right that the city council has a lot to answer for. It's not known for its alacrity when it comes to getting things done. In fact, any public works in Edinburgh seem to take a staggering amount of time. But blaming the council for everything that you see as wrong with the festival...? The festivals are much more freewheeling than that and I doubt it'd be able to co-ordinate a three week fest even if it wanted to. I can see the advantages of having the 3-week-fest package from a promoter's point of view, although I kinda like the rambling nature of the various festivals where there is a bigger window to turn up in town and dip in.

Re moving the film festival to June - far from being "insanity" - I think it has worked out. Okay, it's a pity that there's less of that cross fertilisation of film and live performance worlds that you had before when both festivals ran in August. The film fest parties have lost something by not having all these interesting Fringe actors turn up. But now there's time to take in shows from both film and stage and correspondingly there's a little less pressure on accommodation and venues.

As for media coverage of the festival outside Scotland - this has been a long-running problem. Organisers of the Big Four venues echoed many of your sentiments about the festivals profile south of the border when they set up the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. The umbrella group Festivals Edinburgh or Edinburgh's Festivals or whatever it's called is meant to be marketing all the festivals although many people think it's clearly not working. I don't know why it is so invisible - are they reading this now? Please feel free to comment...

I also can't understand why the Beeb is increasingly shunning the festival - it has been drawing back its coverage for years and years. But with all the MSM pulling in the horns - due to credit crunch and internet - isn't arts coverage across the board getting hit - not just Edinburgh's Festivals?

Can't end my post without mentioning the trams: there's little love for the trams in Edinburgh right now. Everyone blames the trams for, well, everything practically. But hopefully the pain now will be worth the reduction in usual gridlock that Edinburgh experiences at festival time.

Incidentally, the Princes Street trams work actually was slated to start in February, and stop during the festival. But it was delayed for a month over a dispute with the contractors. So work is continuing on Princes Street through August so that it can open by Christmas/Hogmanay.

All I can say is welcome to Edinburgh! This is how the city council has let one of the most splendid city centres become and we that live here have had to tolerate it for years now. I feel the festivals themselves have never felt healthier, the moving of the film festival to June is a great idea as there is simply so much on in August anyway. There is a great atmosphere in town following a truly awful period for the city following the council's eagerness to wildly overdevelop (not helped by failing to resolve bin strikes in time for the festival period).

Ah, the constant arguments that the Fringe embroils.

Having worked during the Fringe for six years in various roles, but mostly journalistic, I have to say that in all honesty it is a festival that has been through some tough times despite its institutional stature (last year’s ticketing fiasco case in point, resulting in many resignations). However this does give the opportunity to breathe life into the festival with, hopefully, a fresh and encouraging approach to its future – which isn’t bleak and shouldn’t be viewed as such.

New records are reached every year with the festival, this year being no exception despite the messy business of the trams, which is an eyesore for the tourists who flock here. It is a nightmare (anyone who’s watched Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow will know that the residents of Edinburgh are sick to death of the “bloody trams”), and while they may seem unnecessary, edg brings up a good point that they may have caused disruption for one year but will hopefully decrease congestion in the future.

Coverage outside of Scotland is an issue that has been ongoing and has hit headlines in the past. The new conglomerate of Edinburgh Festivals is still a fledgling so hopefully (optimistic head on) their future marketing and PR, teamed with the efforts of the venues will increase media traffic. There is the issue that the festival isn’t newsworthy, as it rarely appears in the pages of the media except to the confined festival sections included for the month, and this is an issue that does need to be tackled.

As for resting on laurels vs. fresh focus on emerging talent – although there is a tendency for well-known comedians to re-appear every year and overshadow fresh, exciting and challenging work, looking at ticket sales alone, this is merely giving the public what it wants. The age-old question of how we get the masses to embrace challenging theatre from unknowns is an infuriating concept.