Beacon Arts Centre secures covid funding support

06.08.2020

Twenty venues across Scotland, including Greenock’s Beacon Arts Centre, have received a total of £7.5m from the first strand of the Scottish Government’s £12.5m Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund.

Designed to support performing arts venues that cannot yet re-open due to the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fund is helping to:

remove the threat of insolvency prior to the end of March 2021 to enable the development and delivery of activity as soon as practicable
allow for specialist / core staff to return from furlough or avoid redundancy to work on future sustainable activity plans
increase commissioning and employment opportunities for freelance artists and creative practitioners (between now and end of March 2021) to support continued public engagement while closed.

Recipients of the second strand of the Performing Arts Venues Fund, an open fund of £5m, will be announced in due course.

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said:

“Theatres and performing arts venues are vital to individuals, communities and our country. Our performing arts venues effectively had to close overnight, with an almost complete loss of income. There is no doubt that in doing so they saved lives, and for that I am extremely grateful.

“We know the impact of this crisis will be long-term so ambitious action to support the future of these organisations, as well as our wider cultural infrastructure, is key. This funding will be a vital lifeline to help performing arts venues continue to weather the storm.”

Iain Munro, CEO, Creative Scotland said:

“There are significant challenges facing Scotland’s culture sector, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This funding for performing arts venues is much needed and will help organisations tackle these challenges but we are aware that budgets are finite and it is not possible to provide financial assistance to every organisation through this route at this time.

“The Covid-19 emergency funds announced for the culture sector so far are not, by any means, the end of the support to be offered and there will be more announcements to come, not least in terms of how the £97m Scotland has received for culture and heritage as a result of the UK Government’s funding package is to be applied. The precise nature of this is still being determined and, beyond what has already been made available, Creative Scotland is working closely with the Scottish Government to actively discuss further support for the culture sector, including for those who may not have received funding previously.”

Notes to Editors

1. Recipients of the first strand (£7.5m) of the Scottish Government’s Performing Arts Venues Fund are:

Venue	Local Authority	Award Total
Aberdeen Performing Arts	Aberdeen City	£750,000
An Lanntair	Na h-Eileanan Siar	£100,000
Beacon Arts Centre	Inverclyde	£114,000
CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts	Glasgow City	£214,500
Citizens Theatre	Glasgow City	£100,000
Comar	Argyll and Bute	£119,000
Dance Base	City of Edinburgh	£256,200
Dundee Repertory Theatre	Dundee City	£480,907
Eden Court Theatre and Cinema	Highland	£750,000
Horsecross Arts	Perth and Kinross	£749,900
Macrobert Arts Centre	Stirling	£485,213
Pitlochry Festival Theatre	Perth and Kinross	£400,000
Platform (Glasgow East Arts Co)	Glasgow City	£75,400
Royal Lyceum Theatre Company	City of Edinburgh	£750,000
Shetland Arts Development Agency	Shetland Islands	£247,582
The Barn	Aberdeenshire	£105,000
The Storytelling Centre/TRACS	City of Edinburgh	£213,000
Tramway	Glasgow City	£549,000
Traverse Theatre	City of Edinburgh	£500,000
Tron Theatre	Glasgow City	£499,849

2. Full details on the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund, including fund guidance and funding submissions, can be found on the Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund page.

£7.5m targeted funding for performing arts venues in Scotland currently in receipt of Regular Funding through Creative Scotland. Find out more about our Regular Funding Network 2018-21.
£5m open fund for application from Scotland based performing arts venues not currently in receipt of Regular Funding. This open fund has been developed with input from the Federation for Scottish Theatre

3. Further details about COVID-19 funding and resources can be accessed via the www.FindBusinessSupport.gov.scot website, and through Creative Scotland’s Resource Directory for COVID-19.

4. On Sunday 5 July 2020, the UK Government announced £97million funding for Scotland’s culture and heritage sector. On Thursday 9 July 2020, the Scottish Government announced a separate £2.2m fund specifically aimed at independent commercial music venues. On both of these, we are working with the Scottish Government and the sector as regards how funding will be accessed, with more details to follow.

5. The Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund is an important part of Creative Scotland’s ongoing response to the country’s creative community as a result of the immediate impacts being felt due to the COVID-19 outbreak:

£4.5m Bridging Bursaries Programme to support people working in Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries sectors who are experiencing immediate financial difficulty as a result of cancelled work due to COVID-19.
£8.5m of existing resources have been repurposed to create the £7.5m Open Fund: Sustaining Creative Development and the £1m Screen Scotland Single Project Fund, to help sustain creative practice, and the development of new work.

6. Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery.