First come, first served fund for Scotland’s devastated events industry

The Events Industry Support Fund will provide one-off grants of £10,000 to support businesses in the events industry, particularly those in the supply chain – on a first come, first served basis.

The fund is being delivered on behalf of the Scottish Government by VisitScotland and its EventScotland team.

It is part of a £10 million support package for the industry, parts of which are not yet open and those which have are operating with limited numbers due to the pandemic.

The fund will support businesses which meet the criteria and have not received Covid-related government funding from other schemes.

This includes suppliers working to organise, stage and deliver in Scotland, business and MICE events (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) and/ or cultural and sporting events and festivals which are open to the public.

Paul Bush, VisitScotland’s director of events, said: “The events industry has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic as one of the first industries to stop and it will be one of the last to restart.

“There is a desperate need for support and this fund will help a number of businesses in the short term until we can start to run events again. 

“It is designed to give much-needed cashflow support to those companies who have faced real hardship during lockdown.

“It is on a first come, first served approach, with only the first 600 applications being awarded funding.

“So I’d urge events supply chain firms to get their applications in as soon as possible.”

The fund is open to the self-employed (limited company or sole trader), partnerships and incorporated businesses who can demonstrate that supply to, organisation of and/or delivery of or to events in Scotland represents their primary source of income and that they earned a minimum of £10,000 from the supply to events in Scotland in 2019/20.

Applications will open at noon on August 31 and run until noon on September 14.

For full details, visit www.visitscotland.org/events/funding/coronavirus-support-fund.