It may still have the best part of a week still to go, but Edinburgh’s summer festivals season has been yet another triumph for the city, despite a whole new set of challenges.
By the end of July the prospect of a month of prolonged public disruption in Edinburgh in the aftermath of the Princes Street fire had created an air of gloom ahead of the first venues and shows opening.
With more than 5000 shows and events on sale and an overall audience of around four million expected, there was understandable anxiety over whether the city could cope with the closure of its main public transport thoroughfare, the loss of the tram link to Leith and a whole host of city centre diversions.
Any lingering optimism that Princes Street could be reopened during the festivals has long since evaporated, as the painstaking work to stabilise the former Debenhams department store has gone on, almost unnoticed by the vast majority of the visitors who have poured into the city over the last few weeks.
Edinburgh’s festivals, their staff, performers and audiences, businesses and transport operators have knuckled down and done the city proud during a season which has boasted a record number of shows and events.
Edinburgh's festivals have been running since 1947. (Image: Supplied)
The city’s cultural gathering will undoubtedly have attracted one of the biggest collective audiences in its 79-year history by the time the last performers take a bow on Monday night.
But the triumphant return of the festivals has been tainted by an excruciating dispute with the city council which could and should have been easily avoided.
The Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra is appearing at the 2026 Edinburgh International Festival. (Image: Stephan Rabold)
Edinburgh has spent years pursuing plans for a tourist tax, or visitor levy as the city council prefers to call it, with the scheme finally being introduced just in time for the start of this month's festivals.
The key objective, clearly stated on the dedicated visitor levy page on the council’s website, was to “sustain Edinburgh's status as one of the world's greatest cultural and heritage cities”.
More than 18 months have passed since Edinburgh's councillors voted in favour of introducing a visitor levy.
There was initial optimism about meaningful new investment for the arts sector when it was agreed to ringfence 35 per cent of all visitor levy income for culture, heritage and events.
However, by the time initial spending plans were approved by the city council in February, there was hardly a mention of the festivals, despite the huge audiences they bring to the city, their cultural heritage, the council’s long-standing investment in them and – perhaps more significantly – the increased costs they all faced as a result of the scheme’s introduction.
Rumblings of discontent from the festivals, who were already at the back of the queue for investment, turned to fury and exasperation at the start of August when the long-awaited recommendations of new investment were published without warning by the council.
