Andrew Girvan

Arts Funding: Ideas Tap Innovation and Edinburgh Fund

I spent most of this morning slowly thumbing throught the executive summaries of applications for the Ideas Tap Innovation and Edinburgh funds. I say slowly thumbing not because there is a lot of reading to do, the summaries are limited to 100 words, but because the wesite really is a mess. The entire thing seems to be crippled by JavaScript. You can’t open summaries, or “responses” as they are called in some parts of the site, in different browser tabs because they are all tied back to original query meaning that trying to get any grasp of what the applications contain, there are 180 for the Edinburgh fund alone, is near impossible.

I did spend enough time on the site to see that there are some very interesting applications. I admit that I spent more time on the Edinburgh fund’s pitch page as the Innovators Fund offers applications from just about everything under the sun and seemed to include a lot of applications from the film and TV development side of the industry.

The point I was really hoping to make with post was that from the 180 shows that have applied for funding there really isn’t any reason that they shouldn’t make it to Edinburgh. For a start each of the companies should be congratulated for managing to pull together funding applications for projects in November when the Fringe isn’t until August of next year. The brochure submission deadline will presumeably be in April of next year with the Fringe Society’s roadshows taking place in January or February in Edinburgh, London and furtherafield. Even by these dates the companies are well placedd, already managing to condense down into 100 words a project that they hope to bring to the stage next summer.

The Fringe last year played host to roughly 1100 different shows, some would say this number is conservative as it doesn’t include events which happened but were not included in the Fringe brochure or sold through the Fringe Box Office. When held up an event of this scale there is absolutely no reason that all 180 Ideas Tap applicant shows should not be able to make it to Edinburgh. The real question will of course come down to where, if not from Ideas Tap, the money comes.

In the current funding climate, compacted by the fact that the Arts Council England is suspending applications after Christmas, these young companies may find it an uphill struggle to get their shows up to Edinburgh, casts housed, venues paid and fliers printed. This is not to say that Arts Council Funding would make all of these young companies funding woes dissapear but when deciding on which projects to take forwards in 2010 these are considerations to be taken into account.

Only being able to see the 100 words tr conapanies have put forward I have no idea about the individual merits of their funding plans or coatings. As innovative as some of their artistic ideas may be they are still going to come across the regular mixture of venue fees and accomodation costs which form the basis of every Edinburgh budget. Hopefully the fact that these companies have invested time and effort in their Fringe shows at this early stage means they will be well prepared will all feature, in some way, in the Edinburgh Fringe 2010.

Photo credit: UnknownDomain on Flickr