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Dateline: 30th March, 2008
£6m for Edinburgh Festivals Scottish Culture Minister Linda Fabiani has launched a £6 million fund to promote homegrown talent at the Edinburgh festivals. The aim of the new Expo Fund, she said, is "to help maintain the global competitive edge of the Festivals which make a significant contribution to our economy and attract visitors from around the world. "With Edinburgh as the pre-eminent festival capital of the world we have a real platform to showcase the best of Scottish talent to international audiences." And she added, "One of our key priorities is to ensure that we get more Scottish-based artists involved in the Edinburgh festivals and touring within and outwith Scotland thereafter." The idea is to fund new work by Scottish artists in any discipline which premieres at any of the city's twelve festivals and then goes on to tour. The fund will be adminstered bythe Scottish Arts Council although the minister said that she would be the one who would make the final decisions. She also said that the criteria would be broad enough that work which has a "significant Scottish element" will be covered. £2m per year has been allocated for the next three years although, because of the short timescale, only £1,308,000 will be spent this year and the rest will be rolled over into the next two years. Although no announcements have yet been made about what will be funded this year (successful bids will be announced in early summer), it is understood that one major Edinburgh International Festival production will be supported, a production which could not otherwise have been possible. Faith Liddell of umbrella organisation Festival Edinburgh said that most festivals are co-ordinating their efforts to secure funding through Expo. The Tattoo, she said, did not apply for funding and the Fringe, because it is not responsible for programming, will not have proposals ready for this year but hopes to announce its intentions in the summer. "There was a pretty tight timescale to work to for projects to secure funding during the first year," she added, "but it was effectively over-subscribed." In Expo Fund initiative is partially a response to the Thundering Hooves report of 2006.
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