Lifeline funds secured by Scottish arts venues
Scottish theatres and arts venues have been handed up to £750,000 apiece to help stave off the threat of going insolvent and having to cut jobs.
The £7.5 million in emergency funding, which is being shared among 20 different arts organisations, is expected to help pay for some of Scotland’s live events to take place while social distancing restrictions are still in place.
The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, Horsecross Arts, which runs Perth Theatre and Perth Concert Hall, Eden Court Theatre in Inverness and Aberdeen Performing Arts, which runs His Majesty’s Theatre, the Music Hall and the Lemon Tree, received the maximum bail-outs.
Dundee Rep, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the Tramway arts centre and Tron Theatre in Glasgow, the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling each secured more than £400,000.
Key aims of the funding are to help bring staff back off furlough, commissioning new projects and helping to pay for the first live events to go ahead once restrictions are eased. Outdoor events may be allowed to go ahead by the end of this month, while indoor events could resume in midseptember.
Other multi-arts centres receiving a share of the £7.5m fund, which is being run by Creative Scotland, include An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway, Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, the CCA in Glasgow and The Barn in Aberdeenshire.
They already receive longterm funding from arts agency Creative Scotland, which handled the applications for the new fund.
The remainder of it is available to venues and arts organisations which are not currently part of Creative Scotland’s “regular funding” programme. However, they must have charitable status and must be either owned or run by a local authority.
A separate fund worth £2.2m has been created by the government to help grassroots music venue, while £10m has been allocated to the events sector.
Creative Scotland chief executive Iain Munro said: “This funding for performing arts venues is much needed and will help organisations tackle these challenges, but we are aware that budgets are finite and it is not possible to provide financial assistance to every organisation through this route at this time.”