No Cinderella, you can't go to the ballet! Christmas shows cancelled in expensive Edinburgh

Scottish Ballet has cancelled shows over the Christmas and New Year week in Edinburgh, blaming ‘impossible’ rising costs.

The dance company’s nationwide tour of Cinders! – a playful retelling of the Cinderella fairytale – will now only run in the city from December 11 to December 24.

Scottish Ballet had hoped the production at the Festival Theatre would run until New Year’s Eve but bosses said it costs too much. 

The company said its annual bill for housing 150 performers and crew in standard Edinburgh hotels rose by 72 per cent between December 2019 and December 2025 to £200,000.

From Thursday, the City of Edinburgh Council will charge visitors a five-per-cent fee on overnight accommodation.

Tourism bodies had raised concerns about the impact the levy would have on Edinburgh’s competitiveness as a visitor destination. 

Scottish Ballet has said the ‘tourist tax’ is one of the factors that has led to it cancelling the shows between Christmas and New Year.

Steven Roth, executive director of Scottish Ballet, said: ‘The economics of touring to Edinburgh are fast becoming unsustainable. We will keep finding ways to make it work because we believe in this city. But a visitor economy that becomes too expensive for both the artists who animate it and the audiences who come to see them risks undermining the very thing that makes Edinburgh worth visiting.’

The company has called on the local authority to consider an exemption to the levy for national performing companies based in Glasgow. 

Christopher Hampson, artistic director of Scottish Ballet, added: ‘Edinburgh is known around the world as a city where the arts are alive in a way that is genuinely rare.

‘We remain committed to Edinburgh, but that commitment needs to be a two-way street.’

Council leader Jane Meagher said: ‘The introduction of our visitor levy is such an important moment for the city. It will raise tens of millions of pounds a year for us to reinvest in everything that makes Edinburgh so special – benefitting everyone who lives in, works in and visits the city.’

Last month, the TV Festival announced it would be relocating to Manchester after half a century in Edinburgh to ‘radically reduce’ costs for delegates. 

The capital will host the event, which attracts keynote speakers from within the TV industry, for the last time on August 25-28.