ORGANISERS of Peebles Art Festival are considering scaling back the event next year.

Changes are afoot as the festival struggles for funds, volunteers and weekday audiences - but they have vowed that the show will go on, Cutting the festival to five days from the 10 days it ran this year is on the cards.

“Nothing has been decided yet but we are looking at a changed festival for next year,” said committee member Douglas Roberts who recently stood down as chairman.

“It’s partly because of the commitment involved for 10 days but also the costs and audience numbers during the week.” Presently under consideration is running the festival in 2015 from Thursday, August 27 to Bank Holiday Monday, August 31.

“We have found that events have tended to be full at the weekends but during the week attendances tend to be sparse. When people are at work they simply cannot find the time to come along to events,” said Mr Roberts.

“From talking to people it appears they feel it is too stretched over 10 days and this idea might well work better.

“The festival has been running for 32 years now and some years it has been for two weeks and other years it has been much shorter.

“It costs a lot of money to run the festival and public funding is difficult, though we are helped by business sponsors in Peebles. We are determined that it will go ahead in the future.” The Tweeddale Society Lecture and the Music in Peebles concert have traditionally been held midweek and are likely to stay that way in future. They might fall outside the dates of the revamped festival but will still be included among festival listings.

Organisers will be aiming to lay on plenty of other treats during the official festival in 2015.

One of the highlights of this summer’s event were the French artists brought from Peebles’ twin town Hendaye.

“We arranged it through a collaboration with the twinning committee. They certainly sparked a lot of interest around the town and in the pubs,” said Mr Roberts.

He nominated the art trail as another successful part of the festival. “In the last six or seven years we have built up a strong community of artists in the town,” he said. “They organise a gallery trail and that’s a reflection that Peebles is becoming a visual arts town.” Mr Roberts has stood down as a chairman after two years but will remain on the committee. They are looking to enlist new members as well as appoint a new chairperson.