Blog: The lifeblood of our economy is in peril

5th December 2022

Guest blog from Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, reflecting on the latest Understanding Scotland economy insights and what they means for the arts, culture and society.

Shona wants to see more people supporting and advocating for the arts. Here she explains what we stand to lose if the sector is not better protected during these turbulent economic times.

Photo: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Andrew Downie 2018

In hard economic times it often feels as if people think investment in the arts is an unaffordable luxury.  Our sector is almost always the first to experience disinvestment in times of crisis but often the first to be looked to when thoughts turn to rebuilding hope, optimism, prosperity.  The Edinburgh Festivals are a fine example of this belief in the power of the arts to boost the national mood and forge cultural links internationally. They were established, by the British Council amongst others, to heal the human spirit and reconnect people across Europe, after the horrors of the second world war.

A thriving and inclusive creative sector is not a luxury or added extra in the UK, it is an essential part of the best of who and what we are, and is vital economically, socially, internationally, and culturally.

In 2019 the creative industries contributed £115.9bn in Gross Value Added (GVA)  to the UK economy. That’s 6% of the UK’s total GVA, more than the combined contribution of aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas and equivalent to 70% of the GVA generated by the financial and insurance sector.

Our sector also created jobs at three times the UK average employing two million people across the UK and supporting a further 1.4 million jobs across the supply chain. So the arts and creative industries are a route to opportunity, employment as well as life enhancement.

Our social and cultural contributions are similarly immense. Great strides have been made in recent years to address inequity in the arts and creative sector. We have worked hard to remove barriers to those who have historically found it most difficult to find a foothold or even aspire to a career in this field. There is still much to do in terms of where the arts are positioned in our schools and education system, to fully understand the transferable skills gained from early exposure to the arts that enhance employability, creative thinking and success in any sector.

We are known the world over for our cultural identities and freedom of speech and expression, for the innovation and originality of our voices in the arts. Creativity, whether expressed through music, literature, performance, visual art or other activities, forms our biggest soft power asset.

We cannot afford to lose these assets built over many years. Having just about survived two years of pandemic-related disruption, we have to face the evidence that audiences are not planning to return in sufficient numbers in 2023 to generate the income needed to cover all the costs that are rising so rapidly. There are no cultural recovery funds to draw on. Our sector is teetering on the edge and, therefore, risks becoming increasingly unappealing as a career choice.  Without support, belief, investment and recognition of our value, the arts sector is set to lose vital talent and skills in the short-term, and become the privilege of only those who can afford it as either practitioners or audience members for the longer-term.

We underestimate the value of our creative output and the sophistication of our artistic expression at our peril. The Edinburgh Fringe is located here but this is not an issue just for Edinburgh or even just for Scotland.  The Fringe is a global marketplace for the whole of the UK, bringing some 63 countries to our stages as well as programmers, curators and screen commissioners from around the world to source new talent and work.

The Fringe is not like any other festival. It is to the performing arts what Venice Biennale is to visual arts, Cannes to film, and South by Southwest is to music. It has been going for 75 years, and with our sister summer festivals, our combined ticket sales are on a par with the Fifa world cup or an Olympic Games, but happen every single year, with nothing close to the investment.

So this is a plea for support. The creative and cultural sector is a critical part of our economy, but more importantly says more about who we are as people, than any other sector. If there is anything you can do to advocate, champion or directly invest in our cause, it would be very much appreciated.

 ENDS

 Link for further information on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society