Extortionate costs threaten future of comedy's revered Edinburgh Fringe

Nowhere on earth is quite like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Where usually oncoming British pedestrians are overly polite and awkward when locked in a left-or-right stalemate on the Royal Mile, in August the aim of the game is to get into people’s faces.

‘DO YOU HATE THE PATRIARCHY? COME SEE OUR PLAY AT 2.50pm,’ a woman standing on a bench yells, while an acapella group enjoying a spritely, spontaneous performance two feet away. It’s a magnetic liberal arts celebration, and one of the finest in the world.

But there’s a big problem. 

Artists are struggling to find anywhere to stay. Tales have emerged of a ‘high-profile comedian sleeping on the floor’ and eight people sleeping in one room for the whole month of August. One three-bedroom flat in the Old Town – the heart of the Fringe – was listed for £34,000 for the month, according to Edinburgh Evening News.

‘I think it’s terrible,’ said performer (and The Chase quizzer) Jenny Ryan, when asked about how accessible The Fringe is in an exclusive chat with Metro.co.uk. She is starring in her cabaret show Out of the Box.

‘We do need to have a think about the funding models for the fringe. I’ve got fighting fund. I’ve got profile. And I’m still only just about going to break even,’ she added.

‘It’s just a money sink for people who don’t have the advantage of having cash in their bank account, or mum and dad’s, or a promoter’s.’

Jenny worries we are now seeing fewer working-class people performing at the Fringe. ‘It used to be the hotbed of everyone from every background could come and suddenly get seen and get noticed,’ she said.

‘I know of a very established comic who is sleeping on the floor. This is someone with decades of Fringe experience. So really high profile. And in order to stand the chance of making any money that’s what they have to do.’

Jenny would like to help if she’s here next year. ‘I would like to do something to help people, because they’re better than me. There are some incredible acts out there who deserve a leg up.’

Although this is not a new problem – as Edinburgh has a growing population of 500,000, so isn’t the biggest city for a festival that requires an added 25,400 beds per nights each night every August – it’s being compounded.

Fringe visitors are increasingly choosing cheaper accommodation options with self-catering facilities on sites like Airbnb. This means fewer cheap options are available for performers seeking accommodation for the whole month. The competitiveness of these properties is also driving prices sky-high.

In an attempt to stimulate the permanent home market in Edinburgh, due to the lack of long-term lets in the city, the Scottish government has introduced Short-Term Lets legislation, which adds time-consuming hoops for landlords to jump through if they wish to rent out their properties in the short term. This is set to further dwindle accommodation options in the city for performers when it comes into fruition in October this year.

Luckily for Joshua Welch, who is starring in Wildcat’s Last Waltz, his performance venue The Assembly Rooms helped his team find accommodation. They’ve been lucky enough to bag rooms for £1,000 each for the whole month. But for a while, they weren’t sure it was going to be possible.

‘Before that, it was touch and go whether we could find somewhere,’ he said. ‘We looked at camping but even that was too expensive for the whole month.’

Josh thinks high prices contradict the spirit of the festival. ‘I don’t really think it’s a Fringe Festival anymore, to be honest. The atmosphere of it is, and you can go and see so many things – if you’ve got money because most tickets are £16.’

He also explains how the venues are ‘money-makers.’ Josh brought his own lamp from home because to use a spotlight would cost him £17 per performance for roughly half a minute of power.

‘Everyone’s just getting more money from everybody. You’re just in the wake of these massive stand-up comedians, and they’re selling out. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they could pay for a small production to come for cheap? We’re paying pretty much the same.’

Luckily, Josh isn’t there to make money, and he is a freelancer so can take time away from work if he chooses. His funds are coming out of his own pocket. ‘It’s taken us four or five years to be like, “f**k it let’s do it,”‘ he said. ‘We haven’t come to make money so we’re having a great time.’

But for Leah Aspden, whose show is called Blue Dragon, things aren’t quite so comfortable. Hailing from Oxford, student Leah said a lot of people have only been able to do the Fringe because their parents know somewhere they can stay.

‘If people have got the accommodation for free they can do it, it’s fine, and they can pay for everything else on top. But from a working-class perspective it’s terrible,’ she said.

‘I work freelance tutoring but we’re in such a cramped apartment I don’t have the space to do it. I can’t really work. So it’s a pain. We are in a friend of a friend’s University apartment and he’s just charging us sublet, but it’s one room for eight people,’ she said.  

‘We’re all sleeping in the same section of the flat.’

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Aidan Jones, who has been coming to the Fringe since 2014, is performing his stand-up show The Morning After under the Free Fringe – a programme of venues free to hire across the capital for performers, organised by comedy promoters Laughing Horse.

While acts get free space, venues profit off drinks sold at shows. The condition is that performers do not charge entry fees, but they can send a bucket around at the end of a show.

Not paying out for a space makes this cheaper for acts, but there’s still the accommodation issue. After nine years of performing – contrary to the trends – this is the first year Aidan has bagged his own private room for the month.

Aidan is in love with the magic of the Fringe, and even made a documentary in which he interviewed 35 artists about why they return year after year.

‘The accommodation is very expensive, and I agree something should be done,’ he said. ‘But I don’t necessarily know what it is.’

Aidan doesn’t think it should be up to other comics – no matter how lucrative their shows – to pay for smaller artists. It should be up those with the most money around the city.

‘I guess we’re talking about broader society now, and there’s people out there with so much money, and there’s places that are empty for the whole year round. And it’s not fair.

‘We should do something to change that. But I don’t know what the f*** it is. I’m just trying to do a show about meeting my biological dad.’

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