THE Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is to scale back its programme and cut staff to “weather highly challenging” economic times, the organisers said today.

Festival chiefs hope to reduce costs by about 25 per cent and have begun redundancy talks with the 32 full-time staff at the festival, which will mark its 40th anniversary next year.

EIBF said that the impact of changes in audience booking behaviour since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and the continuing hesitancy related to Covid-19 among some of the festival’s core audiences has been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis.