Lifeline funding for city theatres

Two of Edinburgh’s bestknown theatres have secured a vital National Lottery funding lifeline to help them withstand the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The trust which runs the Festival and King’s theatres has been awarded £168,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to help pay for essential running costs as well as the preparations for their reopening.

The money is said to be vital to ensuring that the venues, which are normally used by the Edinburgh International Festival in August, are kept secure and maintained while they are closed to the public.

The King’s dates back to 1906 while the Festival, which opened in 1994 after an overhaul of the former Empire Theatre sits on the city’s longest running site for theatre, where the first performances were staged in 1930.

Capital Theatres has been lobbying for a rescue package for the two venues to bring them into line with support for other theatres across the country. The Scottish Government has ringfenced £12.5 million to help performing arts centres, including theatres, survive the pandemic crisis.

However the first £7m was allocated to venues on longterm funding deals with Creative Scotland, including the Royal Lyceum and Traverse theatres in Edinburgh.

Capital Theatres, which is not part of the “regular funding” hierarchy, runs the two venues on behalf of the city council.

The trust has run up losses of more than £2.5m after being forced to refund tickets for postpone or cancelled shows.

It expects to take a further £2.3m hit from the cancellation of the annual Christmas panto at the King’s earlier this month.

Development director Kate Smith at Capital Theatres said: “This vital funding will help maintain our buildings in a safe condition.”