Author: Mark Fisher

JUST back from a press conference in which the Scottish Government and other public funders announced enhanced support for Edinburgh’s year-round festivals, including the Edinburgh Fringe. Part of the package is a plan for a conference that should give Fringe participants increased access to international bookers. 

Collectively, the Scottish Government, the City of Edinburgh Council, EventScotland and Creative Scotland are funding the city’s 12 festivals to the tune of £3.2m in 2012. Of particular significance to Scotland’s theatre and dance companies is the Scottish Government’s extended commitment to its expo fund. The total budget for this has gone up to £2.25m to be shared among the festivals and spent on projects such as the Made in Scotland programme on the Fringe.

As well as this, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has been funded by Creative Scotland to host the inaugural World Fringe Congress, bringing together fringe organisers and directors from around the globe to exchange ideas, foster international collaborations and create lasting networks.

Taking place in August, the formal meeting aims to “inspire and inform the fringe community and build lasting ties”. Organisers hope that out of all the networking will come international collaborations and exchanges.

“There is currently no forum in existence where the co-ordinators of fringes from around the world can meet their counterparts to exchange experiences and ideas,” said a Fringe spokesman. “Although festival directors from around the world come to Edinburgh each year to book work for their own festivals, this will give Edinburgh Fringe participants increased access to these bookers.”

A more detailed breakdown of who is attending will be made available closer to the time. Meanwhile, check out The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guideand the chapter called The Next Step, which offers expert tips about how to network and maximise opportunities for your post-Fringe career.

THE only thing bigger than the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the internet, which top scientists estimate is now 7.6 times bigger than the universe. This means, despite doing loads of research for The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, I have only now come across two blogs that would have fed into the book very nicely.

The first of these is In the Name of the Flesh, a record of Ernesto Sarezale’s time on the Fringe of 2010. Sarezale describes himself as “a Basque cognitive scientist, published poet, performer, stand-up and cabaret act, and video artist living in London” and performed his show, In the Name of the Flesh, at the Banshee Labyrinth on Niddry Street as part of the PBH Free Fringe.

If you dig back to his earliest posts, you’ll find standard publicity info about the show, but then from this post about the first performance, you start to get a flavour of what the whole wild experience is really like. This remark is typical:

It was nerve wracking to have to get the bar staff to assist me with the video connections. Especially when I left briefly for the toilet and found a queue of punters waiting outside to see my show!

From then on, mixed in with his comments on other shows that he’s been seeing – themselves revelatory about the eclectic mix the Fringe offers – he gives updates on the show’s progress and its variations from performance to performance: one post is even called “Every night is different“. 

Sarezaleis honest about lessons learned along the way, such as the realisation that it might have been better to list the show as theatre and not comedy in the Fringe Programme. Anyone thinking of appearing on the Fringe for the first time would do well to cast their eye over his“15 (or so) lessons learnt at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010” (he gets extra points for linking to an article I wrote). 

His post-Fringe comments are particularly good, being frank but not cynical, and giving a clear sense of the battering and the exhilaration you can get from a run in Edinburgh. Rather charmingly, in “Was it worth it?” he puts the lows in a tiny point size and the highs nice and big. 

Still in reflective mode, his very latest post, from just the other day, looks back on what he wanted from his Fringe run and what has happened to him since; as the penultimate chapter of my book suggests, the Fringe stays with you long after the final curtain.

Then last year, Sophie Caswell blogged about her experience bringingto Edinburgh a show calledI Know What You’re Thinking by her mind-reading partner Doug Segal. Her Fringe Trimmings blog starts with details of the earliest marketing campaign, then after a couple of updates, pauses for a few days because the pace, in her own words, is “f**king frantic“. 

As withSarezale’s blog, it’s the reflective posts that give much of the flavour, whether it’s “My top 10 Ed Fringe moments“, capturing the craziness of it all, or “Farewell Edinburgh, you sexy sexy beast” admitting how hard it is to say goodbye.

Then in “Come to Edinburgh where the streets are paved with opportunity“, she reveals how the show was spotted by a comedy promoter, leading to a return trip in 2012:

Edfringe is like playing SuperMario you have to leap over a lot of barrels to get to the boss fight at the end, by which time you’re exhausted – but if you win, you get to the next level…. and that next level has totally different challenges … and
comes under the category of ‘uber-exciting-scary and even harder work’.

Naturally, as every good social networker knows, this can only mean one thing: a new blog, this one called Further Up the Fringe. Watch that space.

I’m sure there are many similar blogs out there – do tell me if you know of any good ones. There’s also one promised by magician Ian Kendall who told me when I met him the other day that he had a 21-year track record on the Edinburgh Fringe and had never lost money. If he really “can’t get [his] bahookie in gear,”  as he said in a recent tweet, that’d be a great place to start.

Author Mark Fisher outside the Fringe Office

THERE was an interesting exchange of Twitter messages this week between me and comedians Elise Harris and Andrew J Lederer. The 140 characters of Twitter are not ideal for expressing the subtleties of a complex debate, so I hope Elise and Andrew will add their own comments at the end of this post – in the meantime, I’ll try and do justice to what they said, the approximate order in which they said it and what I was thinking at the time.

It started with this tweet from Elise:

Wondering whether it’s worth going in the main book with my Edinburgh show this year. Advice from anyone who’s done the Fringe without it?

By “book”, she was referring to the 280-page Fringe Programme, traditionally regarded as the bible for fringegoers and the index of everything that’s on in the world’s biggest arts festival. Eying my chance to gain a reader of  The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide(yes, dear reader, I’m that shameless), I replied:

@eliseharris All advice is not to go it alone unless you have a very particular reason. See my book: edinburghfringesurvivalguide.com #edfringe #edfest

To which Elise said:

@MarkFFisher well the book is expensive and no longer seems worth it at all. Doesn’t seem to bring people in, even.

And I said:

@eliseharris It’s your choice, but signing up for @edfringe gives you more than just programme entry. It’s discussed quite a lot in my book.

What I had in mind were two stories related in my book about performers who had gone ahead without being in the Fringe Programme. One told me he’d had a disastrous time and had returned for a second year determined to do things right; the other  managed to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat, but only with considerable professional support and a great show (and even he said he wouldn’t do it the same way again). My general feeling is you have competition enough without making yourself invisible by avoiding the Fringe Programme.

I was also thinking about what else you get for your payment to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. The entry in the Fringe Programme is the most visible benefit – online as well as in print – but what you’re paying for is also a way to sell your tickets through a central box office as well as an extensive set of support services in areas such as press and marketing and post-Fringe planning.
Elise said:

@MarkFFisher if I had the spare funds I would but it’s looking increasingly tight and I won’t ever see that money again.

At this point, Andrew joined in with these three tweets:

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher Don’t know what it says in your book Mark, but I do know for many, the cost of “official” entry is a useless waste

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher The Fringe Society “extras” amount in a practical sense to nothing unless you are a neophyte.

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher Last note: U gotta be in SOME book & it’s gotta be one people use, either the main, the free or the big venue one.

My comment about this was:

@ajlondemand @eliseharris Andrew = old hand so take him seriously, but 2500 companies choose @edfringe programme so he’s in a minority

Being in a minority doesn’t mean he’s wrong, of course, but anyone contemplating going it alone would be sensible to consider the possibility that there is wisdom in this particular crowd. To this, Andrew replied:

@MarkFFisher @eliseharris @edfringe And many/most of those 2500 should be. I agree.

I added:

@eliseharris @ajlondemand Do you need reviewers, agents, promoters, judges and auds to see your show? If so, how will they know it’s on?

What I hadn’t realised at this point was that Elise is planning to perform in one of the free festivals. This does put a different perspective on things. For a start, if your show is free (and unticketed), you have no need of a box office. I’m guessing that’s what Elise means when says she “won’t ever see that money again” – she would be paying for a box office that would not pay her anything in return.

The question then is how valuable the Fringe Society’s other services are to her. There is no fixed answer to this question: it depends on what she wants to get out of her run on the Fringe. Only she can answer that.

But for a free show, it’s quite possible that the most effective use of funds is to do as Andrew suggests: make sure your show is listed in your venue’s programme and concentrate on flyering audiences on the street. Andrew said this:

@MarkFFisher @eliseharris She’s in the Free Fringe. Audiences come directly from the FF programme. & Flyering. A press release may get press

@MarkFFisher @eliseharris Likewise, a listing in the Society programme may not. Judges are irrelevant to most shows.

Equally, though, Elise herself then made the point that being in the Fringe Programme had the knock-on benefit of getting you included in, for example, newspaper listings:

@ajlondemand @MarkFFisher yes you need to be in a book of some sort. Though need to be in big book for most listings. Might have to think.

As for my point about all the various people – “reviewers, agents, promoters, judges” – who may be using the Fringe Programme in addition to regular audiences, she said:

@ajlondemand @MarkFFisher yes Free Fringe best for getting people in, and reviewers tend to be useless anyway. Official listings the problem

I’d be interested to know what she means by reviewers being useless – not because I am one (I know how useless I am), but because even in the past few days, I’ve been finding reviewers very useful as a way of promoting my book. Putting their nice comments on my website here strikes me as a very effective way of persuading people not only to buy the book but also to take me seriously in anything I might do in future. The value of reviews on the Fringe is partially to do with attracting audiences and partially, for those that want it, to do with raising your profile, persuading funders, getting gigs, or whatever, after the festival.

All of which brought us to a final volley of comments from Andrew (and one from Elise) which, I think, are worthy of further discussion:

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher Over time, as the Free becomes an ever larger component, the press will b forced to list its shows wout Fringe reg

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher In the short term, I’ve found that if you’re in a good free venue at a good time, you’ll get an audience.

@eliseharris @MarkFFisher And it helps if you have a good show. ‘Specially now, w/Twitter, etc, people spread word quickly if you do.

@ajlondemand @MarkFFisher though a bad venue at a bad time and nothing will help!

You know what? I think my comments to @eliseharris & @markffisher re @edfringe would be helpful to people. So, look. #edfringe

I’m interested to hear what other people have to say about this. One thing I would emphasise, however, is that Andrew’s perspective is likely to make most sense a) if you are performing in the PBH Free Fringe or the Laughing Horse Free Festival and b) if your only concern is getting audiences. The picture changes quite dramatically if you are performing anywhere else or if you have any additional reason for appearing on the Fringe, such as being spotted by an agent, getting post-Fringe gigs and other professional concerns.  The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guidegoes into this in much more detail.

A celebrated author, yesterday

AND we’re off. A lovely launch yesterday at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (aka Venue 150) where we sneaked in after the Fringe Society roadshow to declare The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide well and truly open. 

I was struck not just by the physical manifestation of so many books laid out on the table – all real – but also the people in the room who, whether they were quoted in the book or not (and many of them were), were a cross-section of the Fringe community.

Among the crowd were Tomek Borkowy, director of the New Town Theatre; Laura Mackenzie Stuart of Creative Scotland; Judith Doherty and Debroah Crew of Grid Iron; Keith Bruce, arts editor of the Herald; Joyce McMillan, theatre critic on the Scotsman; Kath Mainland and her team from the Fringe Office; Claire Wood from Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group; Andrew Dixon, chief executive of Creative Scotland; Neil Cooper, theatre critic on the Herald; Thom Dibdin, theatre critic for the Stage; Trish McGuinness, arts publicist; Laura Cameron Lewis, producer and theatre-maker; Dani Rae, theatre producer; Mhari Hetherington, arts administrator; Dana MacLeod of the British Council; Shona Craven of onstagescotland.com; Malcolm Kennedy, in charge of public entertainment licensing at the City of Edinburgh Council; Sam Gough of the EICC; Trisha Emblem, former deputy administrator of the Fringe Society; Amy Taylor of TV Bomb and . . . well, you get the picture.

First, Anna Brewer, my editor from Methuen Drama, gave a very generous speech. She described how she’d come up with the idea of a book about how to do a show on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and sent her proposal to an unknown theatre critic (me) to comment on. One of her questions was about who should write the book, whether it should be a Fringe insider, a collection of specialists or a single author. This she remembered, was my reply: “As a freelance
journalist, I am biased. Not only do I think there should be a single author,
but I think it should be me.”

It did the trick.

In my speech, I described how my favourite section of the book was the index. This, I explained, was partly because, as the son of two librarians, I had a weird thing about alphabeticalisation. It was also because the juxtaposition of entries in the index summed up the endlessly fascinating, multifarious nature of the Fringe. 

To give an example, I asked the assembled group for a letter of the alphabet. Someone shouted out “P”. I began reading from the book:

• Palace of Holyroodhouse – the Edinburgh residence of the queen
• Palin, Michael – a sometime Fringe performer
• Paradise is Closing Down – a play by Pieter-Dirk Uys which was the first ever show brought to Edinburgh by William Burdett-Coutts, artistic director of Assembly
• Parks, Brian – the New York playwright whose work was brought to Edinburgh by John Clancy
• Parsons, Nicholas – BBC entertainer and regular visitor to the city
• Passion Flower – a cabaret show by jazz singer Becc Sanderson
• PBH Free Fringe – Peter Buckley Hill’s innovative way of keeping costs down
• Pearson, Debbie – co-director of the similarly innovative Forest Fringe 
• Penelope – a play by Enda Walsh

The selection was chosen at random but, as I suspected, it gave a sense of the mix you find in every hour of the Edinburgh Fringe: highbrow and lowbrow, comic and serious, local and international, musical and dramatic, esoteric and mainstream, high-profile and underground.

My point, in a speech designed to thank people and say “it couldn’t have happened without . . .”, was that the book, like the Fringe itself, couldn’t have happened without this amazing collision of disparate elements. That’s one of the things that made it a joy to write and that, year after year, makes the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the most exciting place on the planet.

If you’ve had anything to do with it at all – thank you. 

ROUND about now is when many companies are deciding whether they really should perform on this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, applying to venues and making all those decisions that’ll affect them for the rest of the year.

As long as they stay focused, there’s plenty of time to make the decisions that will suit them best. The other day, someone on Twitter was wondering if it was too early to start looking into accommodation for August. The answer, according to The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, is that although some people book as early as the autumn, you should still be in good time if you wait until March – and even July is not impossible if you’re prepared to accept a more limited choice.

The answers to this kind of question are related to the timing of the Fringe Office as a whole. The Fringe Programme is published in June, which means the final programme deadline is mid-April, which means you should ideally have sorted out your venue and dates by some time in March. Everyone follows much the same pattern which is why, until recently, it has been generally accepted that nobody talks about their Fringe shows until the programme is published.

In recent years, however, there has been pressure from the more commercial end of the market to announce headline acts much earlier. If you’re a top-name comedian, you’re used to launching a UK tour anything from six months to 18 months in advance. With a lot of tickets to sell, such people are nervous about giving only a couple of months’ notice.

Today’s Scotsman reports that not only have a number of big-name shows gone on sale already for 2012 (as I noted in this blog about Alan Davies here), but also the Fringe Society is including them on its edfringe.com website. Neil Mackinnon, the Fringe Society’s head of external affairs, is quoted saying:

“As soon as a company knows they are coming to the Fringe and venues are
ready to put tickets on sale, we can put a show on the website.”

This is a significant change in policy and opens up the possibility of a competitive festival getting more competitive still. Will it encourage participants to show their hand ever earlier just to gain an advantage at the box office? And will it be the smaller companies that suffer as a result? 

The evidence from the past couple of years suggests that need not be the case. In fact, it may even be beneficial. If someone buys tickets for a Rhod Gilbert, Jimeon or Jason Byrne today, it’s likely they’ll have money in their pockets again for a less mainstream act by the time August comes around. If, on the other hand, they do all their spending after June, there’s less chance of them having the money to spread around.

If the trend continued beyond a handful of TV names playing 1200-seat rooms, it could diminish the impact of the Fringe Programme launch in June. But this is the world’s biggest arts festival and there are many hundreds of companies still to commit, let alone announce their dates, so we’re still a long way off any kind of box-office arms race taking place.

Watch this space all the same.

THERE’S an interesting insight into how an Edinburgh Fringe venue manager may be thinking in this new post on the website of Eco-Congregation Scotland, a charity that helps churches act in an environmentally friendly way. 

A number of Fringe venues are church halls, although the churches often have little or no involvement in the actual programming. How such venues behave is the subject of the post, which points out that:

Congregations who act as venues are being encouraged to see their
letting as part of their ministry rather than purely a commercial
venture.

There are two things to be said about this. The first, as discussed in The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, is that it’s easy to assume your choice of festival venue is purely a question of economics and logistics: how much does it cost and what do you get for your money? These are crucial questions, of course, but for many participants, so too is the question of a venue’s ethos. 

To use the example above, if your company has a strong religious conviction, it may prefer to rent a space in a venue that shares those beliefs than one that was indifferent or even hostile. The same is true in reverse: if you’re putting on a satanic comedy, you may get a frosty welcome in a church hall. 

But it’s not simply a question of religious belief. The Eco-Congregation blog goes on to talk about the audience as a “community” – and if that community is important to you (be it a community of physical-theatre fans, political thinkers, folk-music experts or whatever), then it will also be important to you to find a venue that has a similar sensibility. In such cases, the venue manager will be looking for performers who share their vision. The Fringe is more about love than money andyou could be just who they need.

The second observation about the Eco-Congregation blog is to do with the increasing awareness of environmental issues on the Fringe, indeed all of Edinburgh’s festivals. The question of theatre’s impact on the environment is one I wrote about here in the Guardian a few years ago and it remains a subject of concern for all the arts.

In her introduction to last week’s Annual Review 2011, Edinburgh Festival Fringe chief executive Kath Mainland praised a pilot scheme involving 20 Fringe venues reducing and recycling their waste. She said that towards the end of the 2011 Fringe, a recycling day resulted in venues and companies recycling “over two tonnes of paper”. You can expect to see more such initiatives in festivals to come.

I’ve included more about green initiatives on the Fringe, including material not in the book, on the venues page of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide website.

THE Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society published its annual report a few days ago. It includes name-checks for all the various board members, sponsors and partner organisations, as you’d expect. 

It also includes the following head-spinning facts:

• • www.edfringe.com was viewed 12 million times between June and August 2011 (1 million up on the year before)
• • The Fringe apps for Android and iPhone were downloaded 45,084 times in 2011
• • An estimated 1,877,119 people attended registered events
• • Something like 21,192 performers took to the stage
• • There were 607 free shows and 1319 premieres
• • Comedy accounted for 37% of the programme, theatre 30% and music 14%