Inside Arts
Blurred lines between arts festivals signals innovation, writes Brian Ferguson
Change, as well as celebration, was in the air as Scotland’s literati gathered at the launch of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Unlike the Fringe, which now sells tickets months in advance of its own launch, the book festival’s line-up is usually a closely-guarded secret until the big reveal of its programme. But as regular readers of this newspaper read a few months ago, this summer will be the first in the history of the event that will see venues run outside its traditional home.
Bursting out of Charlotte Square Gardens and onto George Street will undoubtedly alter the feel of the book festival, which has always felt somewhat detached from the chaos, colour and congested streets elsewhere in Edinburgh in August. In many ways, it has been an enclave of calm and enlightenment. But now it is spreading its wings.
Two new venues on George Street will be shared with the Fringe – both before and during the book festival, after its talks and events have finished for the day.
The 34-year-old literary celebration is also experimenting with events in two venues much bigger than those at Charlotte Square, with American novelist Paul Auster and Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell appearing at the King’s Theatre and St Mary’s Cathedral respectively.
The book festival Spiegeltent will be arriving in Charlotte Square via a spell in Princes Street Gardens, where the jazz festival will have a proper venue for the first time this year after being controversially ousted from St Andrew Square, along with the promoters of Fringe shows.
Although the Fringe will sadly not have a presence in Princes Street Gardens, it is also spreading its wings much further than in recent years, most notably onto Rose Street, where Gilded Balloon will run its first New Town venue, and to Leith. Gilded Balloon’s venue will actually be opening weeks before the Fringe under a new partnership with the jazz festival, which has preferred the Rose Theatre to the Queen’s Hall.
The Edinburgh International Festival will also be taking over a large swathe of the New Town for its big opening night event – part of a strategy by director Fergus Linehan to spread the event out more from its traditional environs.
The Stand comedy club’s new George Street venue on the doorstep of the book festival will also have a significant literature and spoken word strand. Audience cross-over is almost inevitable.
All this change and blurring of traditional boundaries may be somewhat disorientating when August arrives and venues are no longer where audiences expected them to be. But the emerging partnerships, intriguing innovations and new venues promise to provide a fascinating backdrop to the festivals in its 70th anniversary year.
There has been a fair amount of doom and gloom around the festivals over the last couple of years over the prospect of their public funding being squeezed. It has been heartening to note a collective raising of the game at such an importance juncture. Not so long ago, the idea of Edinburgh’s rival events and promoters speaking to each other, far less working together, would have seemed fanciful.
It is by no means the norm now, but a welcome and noticeable trend has emerged and is to be encouraged. It offers tantalising glimpses into the future, when the Edinburgh Festival as a whole could become far greater than the sum of its current parts.