During Edinburgh’s Doors Open Day, I visited a century-old theatre that doesn’t even have a restroom, and a three-story Adam Smith residence with a total area of less than 300 square meters. Surprisingly, both of these places have served as venues for the Edinburgh International Festival. It gave me a glimpse of how scarce venues are in this city.
I also started to understand why cultural industries here often lean towards the non-profit sector. First, there are indeed a significant number of people and organizations with substantial funds ready to donate (probably benefit from the taxation policy here). Second, even as a non-profit, government grants can be sufficient to sustain a small team.
Take the theatre I visited, for instance. Despite being too old for serious activities and constantly requiring maintenance, it still receives £1 million in government funding, which is enough to maintain the building and support four full-time staff. Occasionally, the theatre rents out its space for live shoots by companies like Netflix or Amazon, which helps it stay afloat, even if only at a survival level. It’s still somewhat productive.
Similarly, the restoration of Adam Smith’s Panmure House has been an ongoing project for over a decade, supported by more than ten different donors and organizations. This kind of non-profit fundraising is typical of the creative industries here, and as long as you keep telling your story and highlighting your importance, even the most inconspicuous project can potentially attract attention from wealthy individuals or foundations.
To put it bluntly, it’s almost like they’ve “achieved a certain level of communism” here. While private ownership exists, there’s a sense of distribution based on need. I realize that my difficulty in understanding NPOs might stem from my inability to fully grasp an economic logic that lies outside the capitalist framework.
