🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 30 Aug - 6 Sept 2023
Gender divide exposed, Colony of Artists returns, performers ‘goosed’ after festivals + new local creative jobs and opportunities
Welcome to the Culture Minute, Edinburgh’s weekly round up of local arts happenings. Putting together this week’s round-up of links has reminded me that local cultural life truly does live on beyond the festivals. If I’ve missed anything, though, please let me know by replying to the email. In this week’s newsletter you’ll also find local creative sector jobs and opportunities.
📊 The box office tally shows 2023 was the fifth biggest festival in Edinburgh’s history. Here’s quick round-up of festival look-backs:
- The Fringe: 2,445,000 tickets sold.
- The Pleasance: 480,000 tickets sold.
- Gilded Balloon: 190,000 tickets sold.
- Assembly: 453,000 tickets sold.
- Underbelly: 300,000 tickets sold.
- The Space: 190,000 tickets sold. ⮑ Source: Chortle.
💰 How do the 2023 festival ticket sales compare to previous festivals? - Brain Ferguson has context and analysis of the numbers in The Scotsman.
🗣 ⮑ “2.5 million tickets sold… presented as a triumph, but I am not sure. Sheer volume of sales remains a poor metric to measure such a sprawling event by.” - Twitter thread by Fergus Morgan.
🗣 ⮑ “I've had the best month. With the best people. Making the best work. But I'm goosed. Just wanted to say a quick message to anyone out there who can or who wants to support theatre - to our government funders and backers who may see this... Everyone I know is sacrificing something in some way to do a fringe show so that we can keep the festival going. The festival which brings in well over £200 Million to our economy each year (some sources say it's more closer to a billion).” - Actor Hannah Jarrett-Scott.
👀 In news that won’t surprise many, Scotland’s creative industries are still dominated by white men, a new report confirms. Women and people of colour are still underrepresented by employers across the arts, culture, news, festivals and digital industries, a report by the Edinburgh-based Equal Media & Culture Centre for Scotland research hub has found. - Abbi Garton-Crosbie’s exclusive report in The National breaks down the findings, sector by sector.
⮑ You can read the full report, titled 'Diversity at the Top: Leadership in Scottish Media & Culture', here in PDF format.
🏠 More than 80 artists will throw their home doors open for this year’s Colony of Artists festival in Abbeyhill. The map and brochure are now live on the event’s website, while participating artists are featured on the Instagram page. It’s free and runs from 11am-6pm on 16 and 17 September.
⮑ Throwback: I made a wee video about the event back in 2010 for The Edinburgh Guardian (now you know where the name Guardian Edinburgh came from). Apologies for the shaky camera work, it was one of the first videos I made!
🎨 The ten-day-long Art Walk Porty Festival begins on Friday. It’s: “an eclectic programme of contemporary art, with an interwoven walking, participatory & live arts programme, alongside the creative community of Portobello artists with our Art Houses and Art in Shops programmes”. - The programme, maps and events are all listed here.
📚 Typewronger Books has a lengthy free events programme for September. Highlights include the return of TypeCast group play readings, Open Mic Reboot X and author events.
⮑ Submissions are open until this weekend for the autumn edition of the shop’s Wrong Directions quarterly flash fiction and poetry zine.
📸 Edinburgh Printmakers has announced a new exhibition called From Where I Stand, featuring the work of seven international contemporary artists ‘exploring the past, present, and future relationships between India and Scotland’.
🎞 This Saturday (2 Sept) is £3 day at the Cameo cinema. Any film at any time is three quid.
🎶 Bob Last has a string of achievements in the creative industries, most notably co-founding the Edinburgh-based Fast Product record label in the 1970s, releasing early music by the likes of The Human League, The Dead Kennedys and Gang of Four. - His career is profiled in Neil Cooper’s latest edition of The Noise of Art.
🌎 A California-born street art organisation has moved to Edinburgh. Beautify Earth aims to help organisations team up with local mural artists. Its current CEO Moral Masuoka will introduce the business at the next Creative Edinburgh Creative Circles event on Tuesday 5 September.
📚 Stefania from the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection and Reference Library has written a helpful post about how to navigate the Central Library’s card catalogues. Stefania says: “We totally understand that they can be intimidating when it comes to using them!” - Thanks to Thom Dibdin for sharing this link. It’s worth having a look even just to see how beautiful and photogenic the collection is.
⮑ Thom also reports on the only show in town in this week’s All Edinburgh Theatre listings.
🎥 Screen Education Edinburgh has teamed up with the BFI Film Academy to offer short courses for budding teenage filmmakers. - Applications close on 24 September and more details are here.
📚 A new weekly reading group in Leith starts in September, hosted by Edinburgh-based author Chitra Ramaswamy. Places are limited and details on how to join the waiting list are here.
🖌 There’s a screen printing workshop in Newhaven this weekend.
📲 How distracted are you by your phone? The Tribe Porty team have gathered some tips from co-workers about finding a healthier balance with our devices.