Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Festivals - open letter from Culture Secretary Angus Robertson

Scotland’s arts festivals are a jewel in the culture sector and national life. They provide an invaluable platform for our performers and creatives, help provide hundreds of millions of pounds to the Scottish and local economies, are a cultural shopfront to the rest of the world and much more besides.

Working in partnership with festivals during, and since the Covid pandemic, it has been impressed on me: the importance of the Scottish Government and its public agencies taking a strategic approach to supporting and promoting arts festivals to ensure that they flourish and maximise their contribution to Scotland.

This is exactly what currently happens with Brand Scotland, the strategic partnership which promotes Scotland at home and abroad as a dynamic, fair and inclusive country in which to live, work, study, visit, and do business. It brings together the collective communications efforts of the Scottish Government and key partners (VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Universities Scotland, Creative Scotland and Scotland Food & Drink). The Scotland Food and Drink partnership is another example of a highly successful ongoing partnership of this sort.  

It is my intention to now formally initiate a strategic partnership for Scotland’s arts festivals, to which we will invite Creative Scotland and Events Scotland. With the help of the sector, which has already identified many of the necessary next steps, I want to ensure that we are best supporting festivals. This will include additional Scottish Government funding, which is committed to raise additional annual spending on culture and the arts by £100m by 2028/29, aiming for an increase of £25m next year.

I would warmly welcome the input of Scotland’s arts festivals, and those who care about them, as I initiate the Strategic Partnership for Scotland’s Festivals.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Angus Robertson