Scotsman Festival Sponsorship 2019

Crowds on Edinburgh's Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

This year, The Scotsman’s Edinburgh Festival coverage has been partially funded by outside organisations. We are very grateful for the support of Edinburgh University, who are partnering with us for our Fringe First Awards, and to Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly, who are sponsoring our daily Festival supplement. All of our partners and sponsors understand and respect the importance of our editorial independence, and this is incorporated into our agreements with them. In the interests of full transparency, we are acknowledging this support in every edition of the Festival supplement. However, as questions have been raised about the second of these agreements, for the sake of additional clarity we are now releasing the following statement:

This year, Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly have come together to sponsor The Scotsman’s daily Festival supplement, and support the Scotsman in continuing to be the biggest single source of professional reviews on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Each organisation has agreed to take out £2,500-worth of advertising in The Scotsman, and The Scotsman has committed to spend all of this additional £10,000 of revenue to enhance its coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The terms of the sponsorship agreement clearly state that “all of the parties understand the importance of ensuring journalistic integrity and independence” and that “JPIMedia shall retain complete editorial control over the Festival supplement.” The four sponsor organisations understand that how the additional £10,000 is spent is entirely at the discretion of The Scotsman’s editorial team. They will have no influence over the content of this additional coverage, and their investment will have no bearing on the number of reviews commissioned of shows at their venues. The organisations are instead keen to support the ecology of the wider festival and believe that it is important to support The Scotsman so that it can continue as the paper of record and the leading critical newspaper at the festival, reviewing as many shows as possible.