The Edinburgh TV Festival will be celebrating British broadcasting from Manchester, starting in summer 2027, organizers said Tuesday.
The relocation decision follows a strategic review of the annual TV festival prompted by rising costs to event organizers and delegates attending the popular event in pricey Edinburgh, host city for nearly 50 years.
“Greater Manchester presented a vision for the festival that combined genuine creative ambition and future-facing energy with practical accessibility and affordability for delegates. This means we can radically reduce the costs associated with attending the festival as well as the cost of passes,” Campbell Glennie, CEO of the TV Festival and The TV Foundation, a charity that aims to boost inclusion, access and talent development in the UK TV industry, said in a statement.
Manchester is seen to have more affordable hotel rooms than Edinburgh, a popular destination for tourists travelling around the UK. The TV festival also aims to ensure continued accessibility for delegates unable to afford travel costs to attend the event in Scotland.
Fatima Salaria, chair of the TV Festival board, in another statement said the relocation to Manchester aimed “to balance legacy with future opportunity. The festival now needs the right conditions, support and momentum for its next chapter, where it could have the strongest chance to grow and serve the widest part of the industry. For the board, that place was greater Manchester.”
The Edinburgh TV festival has become renowned for its flagship address, the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture. Pedro Pina, vp head of YouTube EMEA, who oversees the fast-growing digital platform’s business, creator, and content ecosystem across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, will give this year’s keynote address.
Past speakers include James Graham, James Harding, Michaela Coel, Dorothy Byrne, Ted Turner, Armando Iannucci, Rupert Murdoch, Dennis Potter, Jon Snow, Elisabeth Murdoch, David Olusoga, Louis Theroux, Jack Thorne, and Emily Maitlis.
