Edinburgh will have a TV festival in August after all.
Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic, Màiri McAllan, has today confirmed an initiative aimed at developing a new festival that will sit alongside the other Edinburgh festivals, including the film and comedy events.
This confirms Deadline’s scoop from last month. This outlined how Screen Scotland had commissioned a piece of work aimed at exploring an industry event that would replace the Edinburgh TV Festival, which is next year moving to Manchester after 51 years.
A launch event attended by Baby Reindeer and Half Man creator Richard Gadd was held today in Scotland’s capital, as many of the UK’s TV sector attended the final Edinburgh TV Festival, which is held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Gadd and the likes of Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge were discovered by the TV industry while performing their shows in the city during August.
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As we previously reported, the initial development work was funded by Screen Scotland and completed in early summer 2026. Per a news release today, this was undertaken “with fresh eyes” and explored “how Edinburgh’s August festivals partner to present a new offer to the global content industries, in response to the increasingly blurred boundaries between the different creative artforms and the way creative talent, IP and ideas move fluidly between them.”
Former Edinburgh TV Festival Creative Director Rowan Woods, who oversaw the initial development, has been appointed to lead the next stage of development, which will again be funded by Screen Scotland and delivered through The Fringe Society.
Working with the Fringe Society, Screen Scotland and a broader advisory group, she will consult widely across the August festivals and with venues, broadcasters, platforms, content creators, publishers and other potential participants and audiences to establish the shape of the new initiative. This will include “how it can best support the connection of new talent and IP to content commissioners worldwide.”
This consultation phase is expected to conclude in early spring 2027, with an initial pilot planned for next August. This will likely place it in direct competition with the Manchester event, whose details haven’t yet been announced.
Edinburgh is awash with energy during August, with the Fringe attracting hundreds of comedy acts, who perform in venues across the city during the month. Alongside that is the Edinburght Film Festival, the Edinburgh TV Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, making the city a hive of activity. Many TV professional bemoaned the plan to move the TV fest out, even though costs have become prohibitively high in many cases.
The Scottish Government is providing funding support for the new event’s development via Screen Scotland. More details will follow next year.
David Smith, Director of Screen Scotland, said: “Edinburgh has a unique role to play in bringing together the people, ideas and creative work that will shape the future of the screen and wider creative industries. Every August, the city becomes a remarkable meeting place for talent from around the world, alongside audiences, producers, commissioners, artists and creative thinkers.
“We have an opportunity to build on that extraordinary concentration of talent and energy and create something new, ambitious and genuinely distinctive for the global industry.”
Separately, Screen Scotland is establish the Lynda Myles Debate as a keynote element of the August festivals from from next. This will “honour the contribution” of Lynda Myles, formerly Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and co-creator of the Edinburgh TV Festival, to the city’s festival month.
“I’m deeply touched and honoured to have the debate named after me,” said Myles. It’s exciting to see the importance of ideas and discussion being recognised in the plans for the new event, especially as this was the initial intention of the creation of the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1976.”
