Edinburgh Festival 2025: Nicola Benedetti says funding uncertainty means 'heartbreaking' cutbacks

Violinist Nicola Benedetti, director of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), has warned all aspects of the 2025 programme have had to be "squeezed" due to uncertainty over public funding, the Evening News’ sister paper The Scotsman has reported.

Nicola Benedetti is the director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Picture: John Devlin

It said the Festival had been left in limbo over its Scottish Government funding and Ms Benedetti had revealed that organisers had been forced to drop the large-scale opening event, a fixture of its programming over the last decade, because it can no longer afford to pay for it.

Recent opening events have been staged in the grounds of George Heriot's School, at Tynecastle Park, in Princes Street Gardens and at Murrayfield.

The number of concerts in the Usher Hall, a cornerstone of the Festival since its launch in 1947, was also expected to be significantly scaled back.

The Scotsman said the EIF, which has had around £2.5m in Scottish Government funding in recent years, had expected to get a decision from Creative Scotland last month on a funding application for the next three festivals. But, along with 280 other festivals, venues and organisations which have applied for long-term Scottish Government funding, it is now having to wait until the end of January for a decision, less than two months before its programme launch.

The Festival did, however, announce a number of productions for next year, including the world premiere of a new Scottish Ballet production inspired by Mary, Queen of Scots, and a re-imagined Australian version of the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, which will feature performers from Opera Queensland and acrobats from Fringe favourites Circa.

Ms Benedetti said: "We have had to programme a reduced festival for 2025, which has been difficult. We will not be presenting our full programme until March, so I can't be too specific, but there has been a squeezing of the festival on all fronts.

"We are not going to have an opening event, for example. The number of Usher Hall performances we are presenting will be reduced.

"It is heartbreaking for us to be presenting a reduced festival. But we live in Scotland, we live in the UK. We have got to be cognisant of where we are. We have to protect the festival for the long-term, which is what we're focused on doing.”

She said the Festival had asked for a significant increase in funding after seeing a 40 per cent real-terms downturn over the last decade.

"What we're asking for is for us to be able to operate at a slightly higher level. If the festival had got what it asked for last month there were levers in place which we would have been able to pull in order to present a larger festival next year.”

The Scottish Government said the cultural sector was integral to Scotland’s identity as a country and it remained committed to investing at least £100 million more annually in the sector by 2028-29, despite the UK Budget providing no additional funding for culture.

A spokesperson said: “Further details will be set out in the Scottish Budget on 4 December, but it remains our aim to provide a further increase for arts and culture in 2025-26, which will inform Creative Scotland’s multi-year funding awards in January.”