Visa woes force Celtic Connections to scale back number of international acts
Organisers of Glasgow’s world-famous Celtic Connections music festival have revealed they have scaled back the number of international acts in its programme for next year by a fifth.
Problems securing visas for overseas artists, the dwindling strength of the pound against the dollar and uncertainty over the impact of Brexit on the event have all been blamed for a strategic decision to reduce the“scope and ambition” of the 25- year-old event.
In an exclusive interview ahead of the 2020 programme launch, creative producer Donald Shaw admitted a “more careful and apprehensive” approach had been taken to ensure future stability.
He said the event had decided to transfer responsibility for securing visas and work permits to artists and performers to reduce its own levels of financial risk.
Mr Shaw spoke out two years ago to express fears that Celtic Connections may have to become less international in nature due to the impact of Brexit and growing evidence of a clampdown on visa requirements to enter the UK.
Last year it emerged that some African acts were pulling out due to the “hassle and stress” of trying to get permission to play at the event.
Mr Shaw insisted there had only been a slight reduction in the overall size of the festival next year and pointed out the addition of new venues like Kelvingrove art gallery and the Tramway arts centre.
The festival has scaled back American acts in particular, although Iris Dement, Sturgill Simpson, Anais Mitchell and Tommy Emmanuel are all confirmed in the 2020 line-up.
Other overseas acts include West African outfit Les Amazones d’afrique, Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, Portuguese Fado star Ana Moura and Quebecois group Le Vent Du Nord.
However Mr Shaw said: “The international element of the programmer is going to be around 20 per cent smaller.
“We’ve had to be more careful and apprehensive in our planning and in the scope and ambition of the next festival.
“We still don’t know what the hell is going to happen after 31 October. We don’t know whether we are going to be hit by any visa issues affecting European or Irish musicians. So it’s going to be a slightly smaller international programme next year, by around a fifth. The drop in the value of the pound against the dollar has been a killer for us in terms of bringing acts in from the US.
“If we take an international act on we are now putting the onus on them to deal with their own visas, work permits and travel budgets. That is really safeguarding us against the unknown.
“For some artists, that has made it almost impossible for them to come. It is not such much an issue about individual countries, it is more about whether an individual artist is prepared to take the risk.
“If there is a positive side to all this, we will be celebrating Scottish musicians more until the unknown is known again.”