Suzanne Loftus on the Creative Edinburgh Awards: 'It opened up new funding routes straight away'
Celebrating the people, projects and organisations driving Edinburgh’s creative community
The Creative Edinburgh Awards will once again celebrate the people, organisations and projects shaping the city’s creative scene. Since launching in 2012, the awards have recognised more than 100 winners, with past recipients sharing how this has opened doors to funding, new opportunities and lasting creative connections.
‘The thing I really love about these awards is that they celebrate the creativity that is in Edinburgh year-round,’ says Katie Ailes of I Am Loud CIC, whose Loud Poets Grand Slam Final won the 2023 Collaboration Award. ‘Winning the award really felt like the community saying, “hell yeah, we’re behind that and we agree”.’ Other previous winners include female artist collective The Great Her, Girls Rock School and Daydream Believers, a non-profit organisation which provides education, training and resources to develop creative skills in young people.
The 2026 awards will honour creative talent across eight categories such as collaboration, community, inclusion, festivals and leadership. To mark the awards’ 15th anniversary, past winners recently reunited to reflect on their journeys and the creative community that continues to connect them. Suzanne Loftus of Cutting Edge Theatre, which won the Inclusion Award in 2023, said it had helped in various ways: ‘It opened up new funding routes straight away and we gained more credibility. We were then able to describe ourselves as an award-winning theatre company and we’re now multi-year-funded by Creative Scotland. We credit the award as the beginning of all that.’ This year’s shortlist features 32 individuals, organisations and projects chosen from over 140 nominations within the city’s creative community.
The Creative Edinburgh Awards, Central Hall, Edinburgh, Friday 13 November.
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