The £150,000 state handout awarded to T in the Park by the Scottish Government was paid two weeks after the festival took place at Strathallan Estate.
The one-off payment was agreed in July to aid with relocation costs.
In a written answer to Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Liz Smith, culture secretary Fiona Hyslop also revealed that promoters DF Concerts will have to repay £50,000 each year if the festival does not take place at Stathallan in 2016 and 2017.
T in the Park was forced to move from its previous home at Balado by Kinross because of safety concerns regarding an oil pipe running through the festival site.
Strathallan Estate was chosen as its new home, despite concerns about the whether or not the site could cope with the influx of traffic T in the Park would cause.
It emerged last month the festival had been awarded £150,000 state aid by the Scottish Government to assist with the move.
In total the festival has received nearly £400,000 Scottish Government funding over the past three years, even though DF Concerts is 78% owned by LN-Gaiety Holdings Ltd, a company which posted pre-tax profits of £9 million last year.
A Scottish Government condition of the funding was that T in the Park takes place at Strathallan in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Ms Hsylop said the decision to award the grant to T in the Park came after a meeting between Ms Hyslop and DF Concerts’ chief executive Geoff Elliss and the company’s business development manager Jo Blyth on May 28.
The meeting had been arranged by Jennifer Dempsie, who was then working on a short-term contract as a project manager for DF Concerts.
Ms Dempsie, a Courier columnist, did not attend the meeting. A former advisor to Alex Salmond, Ms Dempsie is seeking to become an SNP parliamentary candidate.
In her response Ms Hyslop said: “The meeting was arranged for May 28 due to the proximity of the event and the extreme difficulties being faced by the organisers in relation to delivering an event the scale of T in the Park at a new site and on a temporary basis, as determined by a condition of the planning decision made less than nine weeks in advance of the event being staged.
“DF Concerts and Events outlined a range of additional costs associated with the change of site for the T in the Park event and highlighted unanticipated further costs resulting from the time-limited condition attached to the planning consent.
“DF Concerts and Events confirmed that the 2015 event could be delivered under pressure but that the additional costs faced in relation to it were a threat to its longer term viability on that site.
She added: “The level of funding support provided this year by the Scottish Government to DF Concerts and Events for T in the Park is in line with the level of funding provided by Scottish Government and its bodies to the organisers of other major events such as Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, the John Muir Festival, the World Pipe Band Championships, Celtic Connections and the International Book Festival.
“The Scottish Government funding was made as a contribution to assist DF Concerts and Events in ensuring a successful transition of T in the Park to Strathallan.”
Ms Hyslop added: “In order to protect the future staging of the event in Scotland, a key condition attached to the grant offer, which was accepted by DF Concerts and Events, was that the T in the Park event take place at Strathallan in 2015, 2016 and 2017. A specific claw-back condition is attached to the grant stipulating that the amount of £50,000 be repaid by DF Concerts and Events to the Scottish Government for each and any year (2015, 2016 or 2017) that the event does not take place at Strathallan.”
“The grant was paid by the Scottish Government to DF Concerts and Events on July 24 2015.”
DF Concerts said at the meeting the 2015 event would go ahead “under pressure” but the festival’s longer-trem future at Strathallan was at risk because of other costs.
A spokeswoman for the Strathallan T Action Group, which campaigned against the festival, said: “‘We strongly disagree with the Scottish Government’s decision to grant £150,000 to help DF Concerts stage TITP 2015, given the company’s past profits and the financial clout of shareholders and the event’s sponsors.
“The grant was presumably agreed on the assumption that TITP 2015 would be a well-organised and safe event. It fell very far short of the mark. Strathallan Castle is not a suitable site for a festival of this size and nature. DFC should recognise this and find an alternative site for next year and beyond.
“We believe they should repay all the money, not just the £100k under the clawback provisions of the grant which apply if the event is not held at Strathallan for the next two years.It would be a strange decision for a company to persist with an unsuitable venue just to save £50,000 or £100,000.”
For more on this story see Tuesday’s Courier.