Initial funding announced to mitigate the impact of Omicron
Events businesses directly affected by the COVID-19 restrictions put in place in December and who have previously received funding from either of the Event Industry Support Funds or the Pivotal Event Businesses Fund are to receive top-up payments from the £19.8 million of funding confirmed by Cultural Secretary Angus Robertson on 3 January.
Up to £11 million of the £19.8 million will initially be used to provide top-up payments to eligible businesses and will be administered by VisitScotland and its EventScotland team on behalf of the Scottish Government, with businesses being contacted from Monday 31 January. There will be no application process for these businesses to complete, however, the businesses will be asked to confirm:
- They are still trading;
- Their bank details remain the same;
- Confirm which event(s) / date they were due to organise and/or supply to has been cancelled or restricted during the period 08/12/21 and 31/01/22; and
- That the cancellation or restriction of such event(s) has resulted in a loss of projected income during the period stated above.
Awards will be based on pre-COVID annual turnover, broken down as follows:
- £10,000 - £24,999 = £2,000
- £25,000 - £49,999 = £3,500
- £50,000 - £99,999 = £5,000
- £100,000 - £499,999 = £10,000
- £500,000 - £999,999 = £25,000
- £1,000,000 + = £50,000
Our EventScotland team is currently working with the Scottish Government and the Event Industry Advisory Group to determine the best way of distributing the remaining funding to support to those event businesses continuing to experience cancellation or postponements in February and March, or who may have previously not had access to COVID-19 event funding support.