Support #Cymera2020

Unlike many other festivals hit by Covid-19, Cymera was lucky.

Our Festival team consists mostly of volunteers, and our brilliant freelance Festival Administrator is funded through a grant from the City of Edinburgh Council Local Events Fund (thanks again for that). Which means we have no staffing costs, no office rent, and with the festival cancelled, no venue hire or accommodation to pay for.

Venue hire, speaker accommodation and speaker fees are the three big costs, and the majority of literary festivals struggle to cover those from ticket sales alone. Cymera does - we were fortunate to receive Creative Scotland for our 2019 festival, and while we were hoping for similar support for 2020, but this is no longer possible.

Going digital means no venue hire or speaker accommodation. But we still rely on our speakers to fill our programme - and they should be remunerated for it.

We are very excited for our 2020 digital programme, and our speakers have been incredibly generous with their time to make it happen.

Help us say thank you, and support them, because without all those writers, we would have no stories to share.

So if you can, buy their books, support their Patreon, or buy a ticket for their Cymera 2020 event - even if it’s a recorded panel. Get their books from the library, post a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or share your excitement on your blog or social media.

And you can donate money right here

Ten percent of your donation will go towards website hosting and Zoom fees as well as #Cymera21 (4th to 7th June 2021). The rest will be divided between all our participants.

Thank you for supporting Cymera: Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing.

Ann Landmann, Festival Director & the Cymera team

May 2020