Rural venues ‘struggling to keep lights on’ as cash poured into city concert halls, warns Borders arts chief

Jason Moyes, head of arts and creativity at Live Borders, highlighted the money being invested in new venues such as the Dunard Centre and the National Centre for Music and said the Scottish government needs to step in to invest in performance space beyond the main urban hubs.

He said the Borders has no town hall venue that can seat an audience over 550, host a full orchestra, or the technical capacity to accommodate a mid-size touring company, while some venues are "getting to the point where we can't get replacement lightbulbs for our theatre lights".

Mr Moyes said: “I've no issue that Edinburgh is to have another concert venue, anything that's considered 'world class' in our capital city can only be a good thing, and hopefully a place that people feel they are welcomed into. I expect that someone has evidenced the need for a new 1,000 capacity music venue, in addition to the Usher Hall (2,200), Queens Hall (800), Playhouse (3,059), Festival Edinburgh Theatre (1,915) and the ongoing work by the Royal High School Preservation Trust to create a new National Centre for Music.

“The £162m price tag for the new Dunard Centre is what it is, but what troubles me is the £30m that the Scottish Government has committed to the project. Scotland is full of venues and performance spaces that are struggling to keep the lights on and in urgent need of investment.”

Mr Moyes added: “If you look at our town hall venues in the Scottish Borders, there's not one that can comfortably accommodate a sitting audience of over 550, a full orchestra, or meet the technical requirements of mid-sized touring productions. The spaces are expensive to heat or at times there's no heating at all, there's no such thing as a 'green room,' the balconies are not accessible, and we're getting to the point where we can't get replacement bulbs for our theatre lights or fuses for our dimmer racks.”

“As far as funding goes, investment in local spaces to get them at least 'fit for purpose', never mind 'world class' is always going to be way down the list of any local Local Authorities' priorities and that's fine. But there[s work to be done to pressure the Scottish Government to invest performance spaces beyond our largest cities.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government pointed to investment in Borders facilities including Alchemy Film and Arts festival in Galashiels, which is receiving £881,250 multi-year funding over three years as well as £200,000 one-off Culture Collective funding and Little Art Hub based in Galashiels, which is receiving £102,589 Culture Collective funding.

They said: “We provide significant support to cultural organisations across Scotland and will be increasing total culture investment by an additional £100 million by 2028-29. More than £200 million is committed to Creative Scotland for multi-year funded organisations between April 2025 and March 2028.

“Thanks to the Scottish Government’s additional investment, more than double the number of organisations now receive multi-year funding than under previous arrangements – which better represents the cultural and geographical diversity of Scotland. This includes projects in the Scottish Borders.”