Edinburgh Festival chiefs have warned that, without further support, the city’s eleven festivals may have to scale back their “reach and impact” due to rising costs and the added burden of the city’s new visitor levy.
This comes after a meeting about the distribution of visitor levy funds was postponed by the city council’s Culture Committee because a report was submitted a “couple hours late”, leaving councillors with limited time to consider its implications.
Fringe Chief Executive Tony Lankester and Jenny Niven, Director and Chief Executive of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, were both due to argue for “proportionate” festival funding, but were turned back at the door.
They had intended to warn that the levy will cost the wider festivals – which underpins the city’s tourism economy – more than £1.1 million per year, with only a small funding increase currently on the table.
The council is proposing a 5% uplift on existing funding – around £75,000 in the case of the Fringe and £50,000 in the case of the Book Festival.
Mr Lankester described this offer as “woefully inadequate” and the council’s response as “disappointing” before warning that the festivals may be getting “taken for granted” by the local authority.
“If you went to any city in the world and said, ‘Here’s an event which sells 2.6 million tickets, how much would you spend to have this in your city?’ they would pay you big numbers,” he claimed.
“You see it with the World Cup, with the Olympic Games, all of these big events, cities throw money at them.
“Now in Edinburgh, these are homegrown. They’re here, and I think they get taken for granted by the council too often.
“The TVL is an opportunity to address that, because the argument of ‘we have no money in the pot’ is long gone now, because there is money in the pot – it’s the TVL.
“It’s disappointing that the council hasn’t seized the moment and said right this is how we’re going to shore up and invest in these very prized assets that the rest of the world looks at and envies and tries to replicate, and there’s just no support.”
The council said that while they understand the “frustrations” regarding the delay, they are committed to helping the festivals “sustain the contribution they make to the city”. They stressed the importance of taking time to “discuss in more detail how best to achieve this”.
Speaking on Monday, Ms Niven, who was appointed Director of the Book Festival in 2023, revealed that the festival’s accommodation bill for visiting authors has ballooned by more than £10,000 as a direct result of the levy, while the council’s proposed uplift would only add around £2,500 to their budget next year.
She said: “It’s really important to say that in principle we think the TVL is a good thing for the city, and it’s testament to the excellence of the festivals as a collective that it’s been possible for the city to charge the TVL in the first place.
“We are happy to pay our share. However, it’s only fair and proportionate that we are also then benefiting from the proceeds of that levy, and that detail is not yet clear.”
Currently, despite the fact the festival reserves accommodation on behalf of its speakers and authors, the Book Festival is charged for each speaker they have to book accommodation for.
Ms Niven said an “easy fix” would be to treat the festival as one booker, rather than more than 600, essentially granting an exemption for book festival authors.
She made clear, however, that any offer from the council must go beyond exemptions, or risk the long-term sustainability of the festivals.
“We’re already doing all of the things that are asked of us. We’re diverse in our income streams, we’re looking at all kinds of different sponsorship options, we’re working collaboratively with other festivals to work out where we can be more efficient and collaborate more on the back end of things. We’re trying to keep our prices low to be as accessible and inclusive as possible.
“We do an enormous amount of work now with international consulates and embassies, and quite a lot of our funding now is coming from the partnerships that we’re developing internationally and externally.
“We’re pulling every lever available to us, but you can’t do that forever. And I think if you want to really see the benefit of having a world-class festival city on your doorstep, you have to be prepared to support that as well.”
A 2026 impact study by the Edinburgh Festivals found that, in 2025, the city’s eleven festivals generated £558m of net economic impact for businesses and people in Edinburgh, and that engagement with community groups and charities increased nearly six-fold between 2018 and 2023.
Mr Lankester argued that, for this reason, proportionate visitor levy funding must be reinvested in the root cause of this economic and social impact – the festivals themselves.
On the council’s decision to postpone the meeting, he was scathing: “I think it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing, and I think for us it’s just evidence that they’re not facing up to the importance of these festivals, and I think they’re doing the festivals a disservice.
“They’ll approve funding for other things; there’s a whole list of projects that the council has already agreed to fund and support.
“This isn’t us saying those things shouldn’t get money – they may well all be perfectly legitimate, useful, effective, compelling arguments, and that’s fine, that’s not our decision.
“But none of those things that have been given the funding are festivals. Step onto the street now and speak to anybody that you bump into and ask them ‘why you here?’
“It’s either going to be the Fringe, or the EIF, or the Tattoo, or something. And those people on the streets now are putting money into the festivals, and they’re just not seeing the benefits.”
It is understood that a dedicated meeting of the council’s Culture and Communities Committee has been called to specifically discuss funding for the Festivals. This meeting is slated for 28 August – towards the end of festival season.
