Edinburgh festivals to create 'significant' new event to replace departing TV Festival

Tony Lankester said a consortium was planning a “significant”, “new, fresh” alternative covering all elements of screen creativity.

The Edinburgh TV Festival revealed plans to leave Edinburgh for Greater Manchester from next year.

Mr Lankester of the Edinburgh Fringe Society said: “We think there’s a compelling proposition that Edinburgh has and it’s just a case of us taking ownership of it.

“The TV Festival as an organisation is London-based, they used to arrive in Edinburgh and do their thing and they’ll do the same in Manchester. But we have a vested interest in the city and making sure it leans in to what makes the festival season so good.”

He added: “There’s always been this strong alchemy between the Fringe and the TV industry.

“There’s legions of stories of shows that have been spotted here, so that has always been true and I think will be true, regardless of the TV Festival conference that drops into the middle of it. If you work in the TV sector, this is the place you need to come.

“So what we’re doing is designing - with Screen Scotland - a response to this opportunity.

“We’re seeing it as an opportunity to do something new, fresh that leans into the combination of creative force. I think what we’ll end up announcing at the end of this will be extremely positive.

“There will be something, it will be significant, it will have enormous appeal to the TV industry.”

He added: “The TV Festival used to come in and had a very carefully designed programme for the TV industry.

“A lot of those participants would step out of the TV bubble into the Fringe world and that’s when they discover Fleabag or Baby Reindeer or Taskmaster or whatever that may be.

“Those things can still happen even if the TV festival is not here.”

He said the new “offering” would include various aspects of screen creativity, from TV to streaming and short films on social media, adding that he believed TV alone was an “antiquated thought”.

A Screen Scotland spokesperson said: “Screen Scotland has been working with partners since the spring to explore options should the TV Festival’s board decide – as it now has - to break with the event’s history and move the festival to England.

“As well as looking at the opportunity for innovation in August provided by the TV Festival’s departure and exploring the best way to continue to support Scotland-based production businesses to access key TV decision makers in Edinburgh during August.”