Explainer: Why did the Edinburgh book festival move?

The Herald Scotland

10-06-2025

Nearly 700 events have just been announced for its 2025 programme, which will include award-winning stars of stage and screen, along with best-selling authors, broadcasters, politicians, sporting celebrities, stand-up comics and musicians.
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An overall audience of more than 100,000 is expected to events ranging in size from intimate gatherings for just a few dozen people around the historic NHS campus, which is now home to the Edinburgh Futures Institutes, to the 1000-capacity galas at the McEwan Hall.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival was staged for three years at Edinburgh College of Art. (Image: EIBF)
Other events will be staged at the nearby National Library of Scotland and Dynamic Earth, the science centre on the doorstep of the Scottish Parliament.
The 2025 festival will be a far cry from its earliest incarnation, which was conceived as a one-off event when it was staged in 1983, when there were only two other literary festivals in the UK.
The McEwan Hall hosts the biggest events in the Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic)
But that first edition was seen as a huge success thanks to appearances from the likes of Anthony Burgess, John Updike, PD James and Melvyn Bragg.
Other authors invited to the city by founding director Jenny Brown included Doris Lessing, William McIlvanney, Liz Lochhead, Joan Lingard and Malcolm Bradbury.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is now mostly staged at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. (Image: Chris Scott)
The festival would return every two years until 1997, when it became an annual fixture due to its growing popularity in Charlotte Square Garden.
By the turn of the century, the book festival was playing host to 350 authors in Charlotte Square and the event played a huge part in Edinburgh being named the world's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004.
Growing visitor numbers and pressure to reduce the impact of the event on the privately-owned garden led to the event expanding onto George Street for the first time.
Although the festival had resisted calls from heritage campaigners to consider relocating the event, they agreed to do exactly that in 2021, when the event returned following the lifting of Covid restrictions, with a small-scale festival staged at Edinburgh College of Art.
The following year festival director Nick Barley sprung a surprise with an announcement that a long-term agreement had been reached with Edinburgh University to stage the event at the new Edinburgh Futures Institute in future.
Another two editions of the festival were staged at the art school before the literary celebrated took over the former hospital site last August, weeks after the university's revamp was unveiled, under a new director, Jenny Niven.
She announced a new partnership with long-time Fringe promoters and producers Underbelly to allow the biggest events with authors to go ahead at the McEwan Hall, where former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, stage and screen star Ruth Jones, Gavin & Stacey co-creator Ruth Jones and Scottish football favourite Ally McCoist.