Month: January 2012

I’d like to thank

THERE’S NOTHING like rounding off a successful run on the Edinburgh Fringe with a vote of approval in the shape of an award.

Often, there’s not much you can do to maximise your chance of winning one, beyond putting on a good show, but if you know what’s out there, you can try to put yourself in the running.

This chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide rounds up the major awards and talks to key players such as critic Joyce McMillan and award-giver Carol Tambor about the kind of thing they’re looking for.

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Read all about it

THE COMPETITION for audiences is intense on the Edinburgh Fringe which means the competition for media attention is pretty ferocious too.

This chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide puts some perspective on whether or not press coverage can help you and suggests the best ways to go about getting it.

Sharing their advice are Fringe experts including playwright Ella Hickson, comedian Nick Doody, comedy critic Brian Logan, theatre critics Lyn Gardner and Joyce McMillan, editor Jonny Ensall, producer James Seabright, publicist Claire Walker, venue manager Tommy Sheppard and producers Aneke McCullough and Guy Masterson.

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Author Mark Fisher in front of the Fringe shop

Sell, sell, sell

YOU MAY be experienced at selling shows elsewhere, but once you get to Edinburgh in August, you realise the rulebook has been thrown away. This chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide deals with the various techniques you can use to let people know about your show, remembering you’re up against phenomenal competition.

We talk about the audience, about images, about word of mouth and that old Fringe favourite, flyering.

Sharing their experiences from the Fringe frontline are experts including Charlie Wood of the Underbelly, publicists Liz Smith, Claire Walker and Fraser Smith, producer Chris Grady, Forest Fringe’s Andy Field, comedian Nick Doody, producer James Seabright and magician Paul Daniels. We also meet Fringe performers working the crowds on the Royal Mile.

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Rights and wrongs

SORRY TO get all heavy on you, but you can’t escape the small-print when you’re putting on a show. It’s nothing impossible to deal with, but you have certain legal obligations when it comes to copyright, performing rights and contracts and you should go in with your eyes open.

This chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide is a clear and straight-forward breakdown of the main legal areas you should be aware of. Dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s at the start and you won’t find yourself in an awkward corner when you’re too far in to do
anything about it.

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Author Mark Fisher with a backdrop of Edinburgh Castle

Rooms for improvement

YOU’RE COMING to Edinburgh to perform, not to have a luxury holiday, but there’s no escaping the fact that where you stay – and how much it costs – will have an impact on how comfortable you are and, in turn, how smoothly your show goes.

This chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide rounds up the kind of property that is available and the best way you can go about getting somewhere that suits you and your fellow company members.

Contributing tips to this chapter are Fringe experts including comedian Nick Doody, director Renny Krupinski and producer Chris Grady, as well as letting agent Chris Boisseau.

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Making a spectacle of yourself

THE EDINBURGH Festival Fringe is so amazingly big that there’s room for just about any kind of performance you can conceive of. That’s the good news. 

It’s also true some things are a better fit than others. So this chapter of the The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide looks at the kind of things that do well and the kind of things that
struggle. It also considers the different challenges facing different types of performance from amdram to stand-up, from children’s shows to foreign-language theatre.

Fringe luminaries including Assembly’s William Burdett-Coutts, the Pleasance’s Anthony Alderson, Underbelly’s Charlie Wood, director Suzanne Andrade, playwright Ella Hickson, producer Dana MacLeod and comedian Ed Byrne are among those sharing their advice.

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Getting in the right frame of mind

THIS IS the most important chapter in The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide. Get the motivation right and everything else you do will flow naturally. If you get it wrong – or simply don’t understand it – then you’re building problems for yourself from the start.

Helping explain what this means are expert voices including Kath Mainland, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Kate McGrath, producer of Fuel, Toby Gough, international theatre director, Ella Hickson, Fringe First-winning playwright, Marlene Zwickler, artist manager and Nica Burns, director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.

Because of its fundamental importance, this is the chapter we will return to most often throughout the book.

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Author Mark Fisher outside the Fringe Office

Month by month through the Fringe year

THERE’S A lot to do when you’re putting on a Fringe show. The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide can’t tell you how to write and rehearse – that’d be a book in itself – but it does describe all the many other tasks on your plate. They can sound daunting, but there’s plenty of time to do them all well as long as you plan carefully.

Before we go into detail in the rest of the book, this chapter outlines what you should be doing when, whether it’s talking to venue managers or doing a last-minute marketing drive.

Offering advice are experienced hands such as venue managers William Burdett-Coutts and Anthony Alderson, tech specialist Nick Read, publicist Claire Walker, theatre critic Joyce McMillan, actor Anthony Black and producer Nica Burns.

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Author Mark Fisher in front of the Fringe shop

The festival nerve centre

IN THIS chapter of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide we look at how the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society came into being and how it functions today. We consider the paradox of an open-access festival that has an administration to look after it, and look at how the organisation copes with offering a service to Fringe participants without restricting what they do.

After giving a broad outline of the Fringe Office’s services, the chapter introduces us to the key members of staff, including Kath Mainland, chief executive, Neil Mackinnon, head of external affairs, Miriam Attwood, former media manager, Christabel Anderson, head of participant services, Barry Church-Woods, venues and companies manager, Louise Oliver, participant development co-ordinator, and José Ferran, box office manager.

The chapter finishes with a consideration of what it might mean to go it alone and perform in Edinburgh without the assistance of the Fringe Society.

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