Edinburgh festival's cancellation will be felt not just around the city but the world

The story used to be about how enormous the Edinburgh fringe had become. As long ago as 1961, theatre director Gerard Slevin argued it would be “much better if only 10 halls were licensed”. Ever since, pundits have predicted the bubble would burst. But it has continued to grow. In recent years, the Fringe Society has taken to underplaying the enormity, believing size isn’t everything. The figures, though, are hard to escape. In 2019, there were 3,841 shows in 323 venues.

So the idea that the world’s biggest festival will not happen this year is hard to compute. It’s like cancelling Christmas.

Today’s news that the fringe, along with the Edinburgh international festival, the Edinburgh international book festival, the Edinburgh art festival and the Royal Edinburgh military tattoo will not take place is not a surprise after the cancellation of the Glastonbury festival and postponement of the Tokyo Olympics. But it is still an enormous cultural blow.

I say this not only as an Edinburgh resident who routinely clocks up 70 shows every August. The loss will be felt keenly in a city whose economy benefits year-round from the festivals. The combined audience of 4.4 million for the August festivals, with their 5,000 events involving over 25,000 artists from 70 countries, generates anything from £300m to £1bn, depending on which report you read.

That is money that goes way beyond the cultural sector to every taxi driver, restaurant, landlord and shop in the city. For all the complaints about the intrusiveness of the festivals, that is money that will be missed.

But money is not the half of it. What price can you put on the rush of ideas, the thrill of artistic discovery, the creative friendships formed, the sheer stimulus of it all?

Nor is it just about this one city. Cast an eye across the recommendations for online entertainment to keep us going through the Covid-19 outbreak and the influence of the Edinburgh festivals is ever present. Most of the shows recorded in VR by Livr began at the fringe, the weekly online bills from the Stand comedy club would be nothing without the city and if you missed the Wooster Group’s Hamlet in the international festival of 2013, you can see it for free until 7 April.

In normal circumstances, a hefty chunk of arts-centre programming across the UK would be generated by producers shopping for shows in Edinburgh. It’s the same internationally: look at festival lineups from Ireland to Australia and you can work out exactly where in the Scottish capital the directors have been. The reason so many artists return to the festivals year after year is it sustains their careers.

In the standup comedy world in particular, it has become a kind of trade fair where promoters and TV execs can spot tomorrow’s quiz-show contestants and Live at the Apollo stars. But it’s not all venality.

Ask Josie Long or Phill Jupitus or Bridget Christie why they do it and they’ll talk less about money than collaboration, camaraderie and inspiration. Playing alongside their peers keeps them alive as artists, just as it does in all the artforms. I remember sitting behind comedian Stewart Lee watching the National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch, just as I’ve spotted playwrights at the book festival and actors in the art galleries. A student theatre-maker told me how thrilled he was to get feedback from a professional puppeteer who had come to see his show. Such nourishment and cross-pollination is as valuable as the publicity from good reviews, which, of course, opens doors long after the festival has finished.

There will be those who see this as an opportunity for the festivals to take stock. It could be a chance to return to the values of 1947 when the international festival was founded as a post-war “platform for the flowering of the human spirit” – something of a contrast to the excesses and hedonistic pleasures of today. Well, maybe so. Artists have a way of responding creatively to adverse circumstances and let’s hope it encourages some lateral thinking. In the meantime, the cancellation means we will all stay healthier, if a little less connected to the world.