Nicola Benedetti: Edinburgh facing ‘identity crisis’ over future festival funding

New director says city’s cultural offering is an annual ‘miracle’

Nicola Benedetti was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Festival last year. Picture: Jane Barlow

Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti has warned that the city is facing an “identity crisis” over the future funding of its cultural events as she prepared to launch her first event at the helm.

The violinist, the first Scot and the first female director, said it was a "miracle" that the world's biggest cultural celebration was able to be staged in Edinburgh each summer given its low level of public subsidy compared to events elsewhere in Europe.

Benedetti, who has admitted to frustration at not being able to realise all of her plans for this year’s festival, said both the city and the country had to decide how much value it placed on being "one of the world's greatest festival cities."

Nicola Benedetti was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Festival last year. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

The violinist, who admitted the festival faced the prospect of having to "streamline" its programme in the next year, said the EIF could not "skimp" on the quality of productions and performers in its line-up.

Benedetti suggested that the festival, which dates back to 1947, needed a “mighty high” uplift in its funding to keep pace with rival events, as she stressed the importance of being able to invest in a “future pipeline” of talent and in the audiences of the future.

More than 4600 cultural events are expected to be staged across Edinburgh over the next month, with recent research valuing the city’s cultural celebration at almost nearly £500 million for the local economy.

However umbrella body Festivals Edinburgh, which commissioned the new research, warned that the city’s unique cultural offering was “hanging each year by a precarious financial thread” due to the impact of “15 years of declining investment.”

Nicola Benedetti was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Festival last year. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

In an interview with The Scotsman, Benedetti said: "If you compare what we do and our output – I’m speaking about both the Edinburgh International Festival but also about all the achievements of Edinburgh in the summer - and compare the subsidy we get with our counterparts in Europe it speaks badly of who we think we are and who we want to be.

“If you look at other festivals - the size of their budgets, the percentage of their subsidy and the support they can get from all areas of funding – we all kind of pull off a miracle here.

"What do people care about in Edinburgh and Scotland? Do we value being one of the world’s greatest festival cities? Is that something we actually want to be part of our identity?”

Earlier this year Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy warned that the event was under “existential threat” and “creaking at the seams” due to the impact of rising costs and a level of complacency about the success of the city's festivals.

Benedetti said: "Just doing more and more of what we do is not the answer. The city is the size that it is. There are all sorts of ways that we can streamline, through the number of things that we do and in the ways that we collaborate with each other.

“But you cannot start to cut and compromise on the quality of what we do. You cannot skimp on supporting and resourcing the highest possible quality.

“You also have to invest in the future pipeline of all of these artforms and in the future of your audience. That means education, aspiration and inspiration for the artists of tomorrow and that also means having first exposure experiences for people like we have in our programme. You must invest in the future of your audiences and your artists.

"We’ve got to be confident and ambitious in achieving all of those things. You can’t half-believe them, you have to really believe them.

“In order to have an uplift your sights have to be mighty high. That’s the only option for us.”

Nearly 300 events will be staged in Benedetti’s inaugural EIF programme, which will feature a number of innovations, including presenting and performing in a number of events herself, experimenting with shorter running times for some shows, and encouraging audiences to sit on beanbags and cushions at some shows.

An “Opening Fanfare” event in Princes Street Gardens on Saturday and Sunday will see hundreds of young musicians from across Scotland performing across three stages.

Benedetti said: “The way I am seeing this summer is that we’re experimenting with first steps in a lot of different things.

“Some of that is about the formats and timings of performances, some of it is about the way we have organised the programme rather than categorising different genres.

"We are bringing together so many different people around Scotland for the Opening Fanfare events in Princes Street Gardens, where we will have the festival’s biggest ever gathering of musicians. We will have so much new music in the first couple of days alone.

“The overwhelming response I’ve had is that people can feel the shift of what we’re trying to do.

"We’re doing pretty well, sales wise. That’s with a pretty aggressive target, but also with a lot of unknowns. I don’t just mean the general climate we’re in, but also with some of the choices we’ve made in how we’re presenting things. We’ve been mightily ambitious.

“We put on the greatest possible artists and art from all over the world, and we tell stories of depth and complexity, for the broadest possible audience, for the broadest possible audience and the maximum number of people, and remove as many barriers to people coming to have those experiences as possible and them feel involved. When you combine all those things, that is our challenge."

Asked if she had a message for anyone yet to experience a festival event, she added: “There is time for all sorts of different things in your life. If you’re in Edinburgh in August, do something that is going to be unique, that you’re not going to forget and is perhaps out of your comfort zone. We remember the times we took a chance and did something different."