Edinburgh Festival Fringe chief warns cultural events now 'unattractive' to sponsors after targeting of Baillie Gifford

The figurehead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has expressed concerns that Scotland’s cultural events are becoming increasingly “unattractive” to potential sponsors due to the debate over how the arts should be funded.

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy has warned of the impact of the “fevered environment” faced by festivals as they grapple with dwindling interest by sponsors and the prospects of protests.

She revealed the Fringe Society’s board had voted to retain Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based investment firm at the centre of controversy over its involvement in book festivals, as an official sponsor of its outreach work in more than 30 local communities across the city.

She expressed fresh concern about the lack of support for the Fringe Society from Edinburgh City Council, the Scottish Government and its agencies, saying it had been left without any “core funding” this year, despite being identified as a “signature event” for the country in an official new strategy for the industry.

Speaking ahead of the launch of this year’s Fringe programme today, Ms McCarthy said the status was meaningless unless it came with annual financial support, and suggested millions of pounds would be poured into a one-off cultural event.

Baillie Gifford is listed as one of the main supporters of the Fringe in the official 2024 programme, which will feature 3,317 shows across 262 venues. Other backers include TikTok, Bloomberg, Innis & Gunn, Edinburgh Gin, Playbill and JetBlue.

Bailie Gifford is also one of the main commercial backers of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, along with the malt whisky brand The Macallan.

Cris Peploe, Cerstin Heck, Saber Bamatraf and Robbie Cockburn launch the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. Picture: Jessica Shurte

However, the company will no longer be sponsoring book festivals in the UK after activists with the Fossil Free Books campaign targeted the firm and events it was backing with threats of boycotts and disruption over its links with the fossil fuel industry.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival last month announced it had “collectively agreed” with Baillie Gifford to end their 20-year-partnership, saying that it could not be expected to deliver a “safe and sustainable" festival under the constant threat of disruption from activists.

Benny Higgins, the chair of the Fringe Society, warned last year there was a risk of the entire cultural sector “imploding” if it took "extreme decisions” on commercial sponsors. He suggested Baillie Gifford had been unfairly maligned by environmentalists and described the company as a “progressive partner.”

Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, suggested there was a danger the Fossil Free Books campaign had ended up hitting “soft targets”. He told the BBC: "The objective shouldn’t have been to defund literary festivals.”

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy.

Ms McCarthy said: “Baillie Gifford became a corporate donor to the Fringe Society in 2022. They have been specifically supporting our education and access programme, which is a really important aspect of our year-round outreach work, which provides access to the festival to local residents in 30 communities across Edinburgh who would otherwise face barriers. We’ve been enormously grateful for that support.

"We went to our board, which is a really representative and eclectic mix of people, a couple of months ago, and had a serious and detailed discussion about all of this. The board overwhelmingly voted to retain our Baillie Gifford donation.

"There is obviously a really fevered environment out there now. There is an ongoing conversation with our board, as there would be given the current environment.

"You can only make a decision based on the information that is available to you in your situation at the time. Everybody will have their own reasons for making the decisions that they have. We have to look at this on its own merit and take into consideration what is happening in the wider environment. We all have our risk registers.”

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Ms McCarthy said it had become increasingly difficult for festivals and events to attract corporate sponsors since they emerged from the pandemic.

She added: "It’s a really challenging environment at the moment for all kinds of reasons. Post-Covid and with the cost-of-living crisis, there was already so much more competition out there.

"Everybody’s looking for alternative funding because the public sector routes for support are vastly diminished. Any of the festivals will tell you just how challenging the sponsorship landscape is at the moment.

“We are looking like a very unattractive proposition for anybody in the business community to want to be part of.”

Ms McCarthy said it was “shocking” the Fringe Society was effectively being left to “fall through the cracks” of public funding support, despite being championed by the Scottish Government and its agencies. A new national events strategy, which was published last month, describes the Fringe as “one of the greatest celebrations of arts and culture on the planet”.

However, Ms McCarthy said the Fringe Society had been left without any core funding to pay for its staff and year-round services.

She said: “What does being a signature event for Scotland actually mean in terms of resourcing and support? At the moment, it doesn’t mean anything more than images of the Fringe being used to promote Edinburgh and Scotland.

"If we don’t fit, for whatever reason, within Creative Scotland’s funding remit, it just doesn’t compute in my head that we can’t get direct funding from the Scottish Government as a signature event. If you were bidding to hold this event, you would put millions behind it because of the impact it has and the benefits that it brings.

“But because the Fringe has been going for 77 years, there is an expectation that it will rock up every year and happen.”

Ms McCarthy said the Fringe Society’s main priority was ensuring the event lived up to its “open access” ethos.

She said: “We want every artist to be able to participate in this event if they want to, whatever background they come from. That commitment to access is absolutely fundamental to everything that we do. The pressure on us to make everything affordable and accessible is really challenging in the current environment.

"We’ve frozen our registration fees for the artists for the last 17 years and have frozen our box office for the last ten years. We’re using every single resource that we have to try to hold the Fringe together through this really awful period in its history, where it’s been hit by Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and a lack of public sector funding."

Edinburgh’s festivals have previously expressed concern about the potential impact of Scottish Government proposals to curb the advertising and promotion of alcohol brands around events.

Last month councillors in Edinburgh voted to bring in a new “fossil free” advertising and sponsorship policy, which is expected to restrict advertising by airlines at council-owned buildings and sites.

Ms McCarthy added: “I worry that the random-ness of the ongoing shifts in the policy environment makes it very difficult for us to mitigate and take a long-term view. It would be beneficial to everybody if there was overall action plan or strategy. These things just seem to come at us out of the blue.”