Kirkcaldy Comedy Festival Awarded Funding Support from EventScotland

Scotland’s National Events Agency has today announced that the 2009 Kirkcaldy Comedy Festival has been awarded £12,000 through the latest round of its Regional Events Programme.

Organisers of the festival, which celebrated its inaugural year in 2008, will use the funding from EventScotland to widen the scope of the festival’s marketing activity with the aim of attracting more visitors to the area.

Paul Bush, Chief Operating Officer of EventScotland said: “This funding programme provides support to events and festivals across Scotland, and we’re delighted to support the Kirkcaldy Comedy Festival following their hugely successful first year.”

Sunil Varu of Kirkcaldy Town Centre Management, organisers of the comedy festival added:

“The staging of the Festival will be consistent with KTCM’s mission “To improve the quality of experience of Kirkcaldy as a retail and visitor destination of choice in east central Scotland”. It will also follow a string of new and innovative events KTCM has introduced during the last 3 years some of which were either a “first” for Scotland or the UK

We are delighted to receive this grant of £12,000 from EventScotland which will help make next year’s Comedy Festival bigger and better. Our ambition is grow the Festival into Scotland’s 3 rd Comedy Festival after Glasgow and Edinburgh and we are confident that the 2009 Festival will be a success on a number of levels : audience numbers, visitors, business, improved perception of the town”.

The Regional Events Programme supports the development of sporting and cultural events and festivals that drive domestic tourism and to date has supported 179 events across the country, with investment exceeding £2million.

Paul Bush continued: “The appetite being shown by the events industry in Scotland just now is really exciting. We’re delighted to support events and festivals across Scotland as they continue to grow and develop into valuable assets, for the host region, and the country as a whole.

“Our industry has experienced fantastic growth over the last few years and the events supported through this programme are an essential part of the wider success witnessed across the country.”

The next deadline for applications to the programme is February 6, 2009 and is open to all events which take place between July 2009 to June 2010 and that meet the stated criteria of the programme. More information can be found on the EventScotland website.