EDINBURGH'S festivals are to get a £450,000 funding boost to help kick-start their first joint marketing drive, The Scotsman can reveal.
A new "brand" for the capital's money-spinning events, worldwide promotional campaigns, TV and cinema adverts and a one-stop-shop website are all expected to be created over the next year.
The Scottish Government will provide the bulk of the fundi
ng – £250,000 – to get the initiative off the ground during the "Year of Homecoming" in 2009.
Other funding is coming from Edinburgh council, which is providing £100,000. There will be £50,000 each from EventScotland and Scottish Enterprise.
Initiatives are planned to target cities such as Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen.
There will be bids to lure festival-goers from rival cultural hotspots like London, Barcelona and Montreal and attempts to tap into new markets in the likes of Russia and India.
It is hoped the marketing drive will help the festivals cope with the impact of the global credit crisis in the next couple of years. Festivals will be expected to help put together packages for the short break market.
More than 150 hours of footage shot at this summer's festivals is expected to be used to help spread the word via websites, mobile phones, e-mails, and adverts. Within two to three years, Festivals Edinburgh also hopes to have gathered details of half a million arts lovers from around the world.
The new funding is over and above the marketing budgets which each of the 13 festivals involved in the project already have.
Linda Fabiani, the culture minister, said: "Joint marketing activity is essential for the future development of Edinburgh's festivals."
The full article contains 285 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
