S6W-18454

Asked by: Cameron, Donald (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party - Highlands and Islands)

Question

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support musical festivals in island communities, where associated costs to run events may be higher than on the mainland.

Answered by McKelvie, Christina - Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development

The National Islands Plan provides a framework for action in order to meaningfully improve outcomes for island communities. The Plan sets out 13 Strategic Objectives and over 100 commitments, which must be delivered over the five year lifetime of the Plan. Strategic Objective 11 sets out a range of commitments to support arts, culture and language. 

Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Requests for Highlands and Islands Enterprise support are considered on a case-by-case basis. The Highlands and Islands Enterprise Island area teams review any requests around music festivals and consider what support may be possible or appropriate, such as advice, signposting or financial. Highlands and Islands Enterprise Creative Industries Team is also available to provide additional advice and signposting to potential support sources, and introductions to other regional events and businesses who may be relevant to an applicant. 

As well as the support on offer through area offices, XpoNorth Digital is a mechanism for Highlands and Islands Enterprise to provide specialist advice to Creative enterprises and continues to offer support and advice around areas like new business models, remote participation and digital opening up new additional revenue streams.

In the main, Highlands and Islands Enterprise support is not directly attributable to festivals but is more broadly aimed at building resilience and year round viability for organisations that will include festivals, exhibitions or events into a portfolio of activations.

Examples of where Highlands and Islands Enterprise has contributed support towards festivals and events with significant music elements are listed in the following table. 

Creative Scotland

Creative Scotland funding supports festivals in all island local authority areas, as well as islands within the Argyll & Bute and Highland local authority areas. Other island festivals supported by Creative Scotland may include programme strands of music, but are not included in this response.

Creative Scotland has provided £441,456  to organisations delivering music festivals in island communities through their Open Fund and Regular Funding Network, including the Regular Funded Organisation (RFO) of the St Magnus Festival, as listed in the table below. These set out the award made to the most recent iteration of the festival (either in 2022 or 2023). These exclude details of some scheduled 2023 festivals as they are currently under assessment.

In addition, Creative Scotland provided £387,351 to organisations through the Recovery Fund for Cultural Organisations (RFCO) and Culture Organisations and Venue Recovery (COVR) as listed in the table below. The RFCO fund (March 2022) is to enable cultural organisations, working primarily for public benefit, to rebuild and create opportunities to increase their financial resilience after the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVR fund was to support organisations that are vital to the cultural life of Scotland and require funding to help prevent insolvency and/or significant job losses due to the impact of COVID-19. There were two rounds of this fund, COVR1 in September 2021 and COVR2 in June 2021, the latter covering the period 1 April 2021 – 30 September 2021. Organisations that were awarded funding in the first round were able to apply in round 2.

In addition, Creative Scotland supports the following organisations based in island locations through Regular Funding (- NB St Magnus International Festival is included in the table).

Fèisean nan Gàidheal supports 47 tuition-based Fèisean that offer tuition in traditional Gaelic arts to young people across Scotland – this includes island based Fèis, as well as on the mainland. Fèisean nan Gàidheal also deliver the Blas Festival in partnership with The Highland Council. Shetland Arts and An Lanntair deliver annual programmes which include music festivals and festivals which have strong music elements e.g. Shetland Folk Frenzy and Hebridean Dark Skies Festival, respectively. Regularly Funded Organisations may also support events held by other independent organisations. 

EventScotland

EventScotland’s existing funding programmes offer opportunities for all event organisers, including music festivals, across Scotland to apply for funding on the basis that it meets the programme criteria. Events are assessed on their merits, and EventScotland will look at ways the event will create a positive impact for the host region and Scotland as a whole. Events are assessed in terms of their viability and event management experience as well as the five impact areas; Economic – Tourism and Business; Brand, Identity and Reputation; Media and Profile; Social and Cultural and Environmental Sustainability. 

In 2022, EventScotland supported 7 events (either music or with significant music elements) located in Island communities from its existing National and International programmes. These included Shetland Folk Festival, Orkney Food Festival, St Magnus International Festival, Tiree Music Festival, HebCelt, BWA Tiree Wave Classic and The Islay Festival.

In 2023, EventScotland is supporting Tall Ships in Lerwick as part of a portfolio of sporting and cultural events taking place across Scotland in 2023. The event has a music strand as part of a varied programme.

In addition to Tall Ships, EventScotland is supporting the following island music events in 2023: HebCelt, Tiree Music Festival, and the 40th Orkney Folk Festival.

EventScotland/ VisitScotland also supports The List Magazine in the creation of the consumer-facing ‘Guide to Scotland’s Festivals’ which has a music genre included.

Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022

The most recent Themed Year, Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022, engaged on a wide range of issues including culture, tourism, heritage, equality, literacy, creative industries and events.

21 events and festivals (many of which included music or had significant music elements) were supported through the £600k Year of Stories Open Events Fund. Supported events on Scotland’s islands included SEALL’s An Tinne with events across the Isle of Skye, Map of Stories events in Orkney and North Uist, Songs from the Last Page’s touring event on Skye and Seanachas – a series of events presented to celebrate the Year by An Lanntair in Stornoway.

The Scottish Government has supported 180 community-centred projects with £732k of partnership funding delivered through the 2022 Community Stories Fund, delivered in partnership with VisitScotland and Museums Galleries Scotland with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Supported events (either music or with significant music elements) included ‘Tìr Ìseal nan Òran (Tiree: Low Land of Song)’ which took place on Tiree, ‘Cliabh An T-Shenachais - The Story Creel’ which was delivered on Mull and Iona, ‘Sgeulaichean Siarach’ and ‘Ri tac an teine’ which both took place on Lewis, and ‘Object Stories’ and ‘Four Corners’ which both took place on Uist, Events took place across Orkney, including ‘Orkney, Scotland and Norway: stories in music and verse’.

Dandelion

During 2022 Unboxed was a major UK-wide programme celebrating creativity and innovation, featuring ten large-scale commissioned projects designed to reach millions on-line and in person, bring people together and showcase creativity across the Four Nations.