It's time to start the countdown for Edinburgh in August – Brian Ferguson

City’s cultural offering has shown remarkable resilience

Spring is finally in the air in Edinburgh, but my thoughts have already started turning to summer in the city.

The Edinburgh International Festival’s annual launch is the first big moment in a rolling programme of announcements which will shape the city’s month-long cultural feast in August.

The EIF line-up is the result of months - and in some cases years - of planning and programming behind the scenes.

Edinburgh's Royal Mile during the Fringe. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

But although its programme will feature more than 160 performances and events, they only actually represent a fraction of the cultural treats which will end up on offer within a few intense but thrilling few weeks.

Many of Edinburgh's festival devotees - the bedrock of almost every box office in the city - will have been closely inspecting the EIF’s programme since its big reveal.

Although the 77-year-event has a fiercely loyal audience who snap up their tickets at the earliest opportunity, it will be some months before all the pieces of the city’s cultural jigsaw can be laid out.

Several flurries of Fringe show announcements are expected before its official programme launch in June, the same month the book festival will reveal the inaugural line-up for its new home at the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary complex. Also competing for attention will be the revived Edinburgh International Film Festival, which is likely to announce its line-up even later.

Nicola Benedetti is in her second year as director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

All this makes trying to plan ahead for the month of August a fun, but fiendishly difficult, task.

The balancing act of being organised without being over-committed seems to get harder every year, particularly for those keen to both catch the next big thing and avoid being struck down by Festival FOMO (fear of missing out) due to an over-crowded schedule.

I have given up counting the number of shows to choose when I got to 4000 in the last couple of years. That figure would be astonishing enough at any time, but even more so given the huge funding pressures on festivals, venues, companies and artists in that period.

While it has not been plain sailing for anyone since then, the scale and quality of work on offer these last two summers, across at least 250 venues, and determination to put on the best shows possible, has been not only inspirational, but has underlined the resilience of the city’s cultural offering.

And now it’s time to start the countdown all over again. It all can’t come quickly enough.