Fringe benefits

Festivals worth £135m to Scotland

Edinburgh’s summer festivals are worth £135 million to the Scottish economy, a new report has revealed.

The festivals, including the Fringe, the Tattoo and the international festival, support 2,900 full-time jobs, the year-long study has concluded.

Between them, the festivals attracted around 2.6 million visitors last year – about the same number who went to the 2002 football World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

The Fringe is the biggest event, generating £70million for Scotland – but it receives just £700,000 of public money.

Festival organisers say the figures show that more money should be ploughed into the events.

The Edinburgh International Festival receives £2.5 million, which director Sir Brian McMaster said was a tenth what a similar event in Salzburg receives.

And Fringe director Paul Gudgin told The Scotsman: "We could do a great deal more if we had more [funding].

“Such cities as Manchester and Liverpool are receiving substantial sums to put on arts festivals, so the challenge for Edinburgh is to maintain its pre-eminent position."

Edinburgh gained £127 million in economic benefit from the festivals, with the other £8 million generated from visitors exploring the rest of Scotland.

Published: 22 Jan 2005

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.