Edinburgh Festival: Can the Scottish capital afford its own success?

Edinburgh is bursting at the seams.

Every August, the city is transformed into one giant stage, as performers, artists, producers and tourists descend on the Scottish capital for a month of theatre, comedy, music and film.

Around two million additional visitors are expected during the festival season, turning almost every street into a performance space and almost every available building into a venue.

From the grand stages of the Edinburgh International Festival to back-room comedy clubs, the scale is enormous. And so are the profits, upwards of $700 million, pumped into the local economy in just one month.

Roy Luxford is the Creative Director of Edinburgh International Festival. He tells CGTN: "The collective Edinburgh festivals are second really only to the Olympics and the football World Cup as a ticketed event. We happen every year in this city. The Olympics and the World Cup happen every four years and never in a city the size of Edinburgh. So it really is a significant cultural undertaking each and every year in August."

While the profits flow easily into the hands of venues, food halls, bars and accommodation providers, now the City Council wants a piece of the action.

A new tourism tax has come into force, adding 5% to accommodation costs for visitors. The idea behind this levy is that visitors pay an extra 5% on top of their accommodation costs and that money goes into supporting the city itself.

Supporters argue that makes sense: the people who come to Edinburgh should contribute towards the infrastructure and services they use.

As Luxford explains: "The revenues from that will do two things. One is to benefit the infrastructure of the city to support the very high visitor numbers. And secondly, also to support arts and culture, which are the driving force behind a large part of that visitor number."

But the tax comes at a time when accommodation is already painfully expensive.

Edinburgh has only around 14,000 hotel beds, and during August demand can send prices soaring to $500, $1,000 or even more, for a single night.

Prohibitive

For performers working on tight budgets, the cost can be prohibitive.

One performer says that in 2024, they spent the entire festival staying at a caravan site outside the city, commuting by bus for around two hours every day. Others now stay in Glasgow because Edinburgh is simply too expensive.

This is the first year of the new tourism tax.

When the crowds disappear and Edinburgh returns to normal, the debate will begin in earnest.

Will the extra revenue improve the city and strengthen its festivals? Or will rising costs eventually push visitors and performers away?

For now, Edinburgh faces an unusual problem: how to make sure its extraordinary success does not become its own undoing.