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The Future of the Edinburgh FringeDateline: 3rd September, 2006In May AEA Consulting produced the Thundering Hooves report, commissioned by the Edinburgh Festivals, which looks at the future of Edinburgh as a festival city in the light of the growth of festivals throughout the world. At the moment Edinburgh is definitely pre-eminent, but with all the benefits being a festival city brings - in terms of tourism, image, cash - it will be under great pressure from a host of other cities both in the UK and abroad, determined to attract the increasing numbers of globe-trotting festival goers. And being a festival city is undoubtedly big business. In 2004 a study of the twelve Edinburgh festivals (including the two winter festivals) estimated that they contributed £184m to the Scotttish economy, of which £135m went to Edinburgh and the Lothians. The Fringe accounted for some £75m, more than a third of the total. Since then, of course, the figures have grown. This year, we are told, the Fringe sold more than 1.5m tickets. With an estimated average price of £10, that's £15m in ticket sales alone, leaving aside additional spending on accommodation, food, drink, souvenirs and so on. The figure of £10 is an estimate, with ticket prices in the three weeks (but not the preview week when they are cheaper) varying from £6 to £18, with a substantial proportion in the region of £8-£9. The growth in Fringe visitors from 2000 to 2004 was 161%. Figures from hotels, guesthouses etc. show that in 2003 the overall room occupancy was 73% throughout the year in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which is a high proportion for anywhere. As those who have stayed in Edinburgh during the festivals will attest, finding accommodation of a reasonable quality at an affordable price is very difficult unless you book very early indeed. My own landlady, for example, emailed me in early February to ask me confirm a provisional booking made as I left the 2005 Fringe! But other cities are catching up fast, helped in no small measure by the local councils. Many of these festival cities spend 4% of their budget on culture and leisure. In the financial year 2005/6 Edinburgh spent 2.8% with a 0.1% cut programmed for 2006/7. Interestingly, in the latest year for which I have figures (2003), the city council made a grant of £27,500 to the Fringe, just £2,000 more than the Scottish Arts Council. In fact, the risk-takers at the Fringe are not the City Council, Fringe Society or even the venues, but the participants themselves. What they earn from the event (as far as the vast majority are concerned) is the box office revenue less the costs of participation (fee to the Fringe Society, payment for the venue), less the production costs (including advertising and publicity), less the cost of accommodation, subsistance and travel. In fact, the vast majority of Fringe participants go away from Edinburgh poorer than when they arrived. (As for the International Festival, it is the Festival itself which bears any losses, for it is organised in a very different way to the Fringe.) In 2003, the Fringe Society made a surplus of just over £5,000. I have been unable to find any figures for profit/loss of any of the venues, but as they base their earnings on selling time/space blocks to participants (and many ask for payment in full in advance), it is unlikely that many of them make a loss. Indeed, some of the bigger venues seem to get bigger every year, with more spaces and more shows, whilst it is small venues which come and go. Following the Thundering Hooves report, some twenty of the larger venues have formed the Association of Independent Venue Producers (AIVP) which intends to lobby for improvements. They are concerned about the lack of infrastructure and worried that there is insufficient marketing of the Fringe on a national and international level. Its profile in London, they say, is worryingly low. They point to the imbalance beween the money brought into Scotland in general and Edinburgh in particular by the Fringe and the amount of support it receives from public funding. On the other hand, in 2004 over 2,000 journalists covered the Fringe and over 1,000 promoters/bookers also attended and it is unlikely that these numbers have reduced in the last two years. Amongst them is a large number of foreign journalists. Thundering Hooves makes numerous recommendations. Among them are suggestions about public funding, most significantly expressing the view that the scale and importance of the festivals, being out of proportion to the size of Edinburgh itself, suggests that major funding should come from the Scottish Executive, although it does also suggest that the city council should increase its cultural spend to match that of other festival cities - 4% of budget. Also significant is the comment:
How could any increased public subsidy be used to benefit the Fringe as a whole? Obviously a greater marketing spend is essential to counter the marketing efforts of other festivals, but also a way must be found to ensure that participants at least have a chance to cover their costs, especially since many other festivals do that as a matter of course. Possibly - and this is just one suggestion - support could go to the venues (the amount depending upon their size), on the condition that they ereduce costs to the companies, perhaps by working - as many theatres throught the UK do regularly - on a box office split basis, thus ensuring that the companies will make something to offset the high cost of participation. It is a ludicrous situation that, whilst Edinburgh and its businesses (and the universities who hire out their halls of residence for accomodation and other spaces as venues), the venues and the Fringe Society itself all benfit from the Fringe, those who make it possible - the performers - will almost certainly lose money! There are, in addition, a lot of other problems to overcome, not least the sheer scale of the Fringe, but there is no doubt that, if companies who are doing good, professional, exciting work are to continue to be drawn to performing in Edinburgh, then they must have a fighting chance of at least recovering their costs. You can download the full Thundering Hooves report from www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1003373.aspx
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