 |
|
|
|||
|
News
|
|||
|
News
|
Dateline: 15th December, 2008
Fringe £250,000 Rescue Package The Edinburgh Fringe has received a £250,000 rescue package to avoid trading illegally. The box office failures that bedevilled this year's event has led to cash flow problems and now the Scottish Arts Council is to give an emergency grant of £65,000, the city council a loan of £125,000 and the Scottish government an advance of £60,000 on the £200,000 grant it awarded the Fringe last year for a major showcase of home-grown theatre. Initially it was thought that the failure of the new box office computer system had cost the Fringe around £200,000 but, according to The Sctsman, the real figure is closer to £1m. As a result of the box office débacle, new director Jon Morgan resigned after this year's festival closed, although he refused to accept responsibility for the problems as he had not been involved in the commissioning of the new system. He is now taking over the directorship of the Federation of Scottish Theatre. The news comes as some producers threatened to bypass the Fringe organisation in future because of delays in receiving money owed. According to The Stage they said that payments from venues were delayed because they (the venues) have not yet been paid in full. In turn the venues said that the delay was due to their having to check the accounts carefully because of a lack of confidence in the computer system. However producer James Seabright of Festival Highlights told The Telegraph that the Fringe had actually released 85% of box office income to many venues in September and some of them did not release money to companies until they got the full 100%. The BTG has learned that a number of companies have not received any cash as yet and that, as a result, some individuals - not just performers but technical staff - have yet to be paid. Ticket sales for this year's Fringe fell by 10%, although that could be, at least in part, attributed to very bad weather. Although the Fringe brings in up to £100m to the Edinburgh economy, its only public funding is a grant of £50,000 from the city council.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
||
|
|
