Advice for Artists Producing at Edinburgh Fringe

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WEBSITE: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org

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YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodFringe

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Sorry, final seminal race plans is two weeks uh whole weeks.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Switching. Yeah, there we go. Thank you. Jump up in there. Cheers. Um, who's like genre, like comedy? Yeah, who's doing comedy? Theater, music, music. Um, what other genres are there? Like spoken word, solo show. Cool. Any genres I'm missing? Musical theater. No, okay, so we're kind of more comedy theater vibe. Yeah, fantastic. Um, I'm just thinking we're doing last-minute tech stuff to get this live stream, and then I'll dive into it. As I say, what we'll do is I've got this presentation. I'll kind of pause throughout so we can do questions about that specific moment. And then, but then I'm hoping that at the end we can just kind of have a bit of a discussion, a bit of a QA. Please feel free to ask me anything. Um, even though I'm being live streamed, I will be brutally honest and I will tell you whatever it is you're kind of needing to know. Cool. So can we scroll to the next screen, please, Katie? Thank you. I think actually, if memory serves me right, we might be scrolling two screens. Yeah, so scroll to the next one. So this is what we're gonna cover today. What is the Edinburgh Fringe? Why you might want to do the Edinburgh fringe, and then also how to do the Edinburgh fringe. So I appreciate for some of you in the room. You're in it, you kind of are knowing how to do it, but I'll try and just cover some of the basics and then go into a bit more depth about what to do, maybe when we're actually in Edinburgh. So we can just scroll to two screens time, if that's okay. No, don't you worry, one and then the next one. Yeah, so what is what is the fringe? Super. So a little history um story for you. So the Edinburgh Fringe started in 1947. Basically, what happened was after the war, the well, UK government wanted to improve international relationships again. So they funded this festival called the Edinburgh International Festival. Um, this was a curated festival. You were only allowed to perform if you were invited to perform. So there were eight um theatre groups, I think it was theatre groups, but eight eight artists who basically came up to Edinburgh and were like, fuck it, we're gonna perform anyway because we deserve a platform too. So they made their own platform and they set up their own venues and performed on the fringe of the international festival. Now that fringe group grew and grew and grew over the years until eventually the artists were like, this is this is bigger than the international festival now. We need help to kind of organize this thing. And that's how the fringe society were born. So that's who I work for, is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. So the Edinburgh Fringe is an uncurated open access platform. It is anyone who wants to perform can. Um, each show is self-produced. I'm going to talk a little bit about that later. And just to give you an idea of the scale of the fringe, last year there were 54,000 performances across the month. There was, I think, around about three and a half thousand shows. The fringe lasts for four weeks. Always happens in August. Um, so yeah, it's it's one of the few places where when you're performing in a venue, there will literally be maybe minimum five shows happening in that venue at the same time, let alone across the city. So you're you're performing against thousands of other shows, which is exciting. And also like shit scary as well to try and bring in audiences and go to the next slide. So, yes, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. Who are we? What is it we do? So we exist to support the, well, all the participants that are coming to the fringe. So primarily artists, and that's what my job is. I'm the artist development manager, so I only care about you guys. We then um work with the venues as well, we support the industry that are coming to the fringe, the media professionals, um, the audiences as well to help them navigate the fringe, and also like local community groups, too. So really it's it's always a funny when people say to me, So, what is the fringe society? I'm always like, it's a it's an odd one because we we don't own the fringe, but we kind of run it, but kind of don't because it's led by artists and we kind of help organize everything, but we also don't like we're we're kind of this funny little in-between um of these kind of two worlds. So we we are there just to provide support mainly to allow the festival to happen and to kind of keep things organized and as safe for people as possible. We advocate for fringes across the world. As I mentioned, I'm part of the World Fringe Network. So there's about 300 fringe festivals across the world, like this amazing one that you guys are about to perform in. So um, yeah, we really try and collaborate as much as possible, share resources, just provide support to one another um uh throughout the year when all these different fringe festivals are happening. Um yeah, and I suppose Edinburgh Fringe, we've been running for 79 years now. We are an example of like how fringe festivals can grow, how they can be this great resource for artists too. Um we're we're not, you know, it's we're at a big festival, we're not looking to grow it. So we don't we don't need more and more folk coming to Edinburgh. We really want to improve the kind of quality of experience. Come on in, come on in, there's like a seats here. Um yeah, and if you could scroll to the next screen, please. My glamorous assistant, I should say, over there. So this uh apologies as well for my um formatting, just ignore. We um so what what do we do and what do we not do? I've added this in because a lot of people do get confused about what the fringe society does because all the fringe festivals in the world run differently. We do work in some similar ways to the Hollywood fringe, but there are some differences. So that's why I just wanted to fire them up here. So we do provide support and guidance. Um we do market the overall fringe, we don't market the individual shows. So we will shout about the festival, but it's the artist's job to shout about your show and pull them in. And that's because we can't be seen to be platforming one person over another. We are open access, we are impartial, so that's why we shout about the whole thing instead. Um we run essential box office, a website and an app. So there's like a one-stop shop if audiences want to come and find tickets for shows. Um, we provide an open access platform for participation in the fringe. So literally anyone who wants to perform can. There's different ways that you can do that, but no one can say to you you're not allowed to perform at the fringe. There will be a way that you can perform at the fringe if you want to, which is yeah, very exciting. Um, and yeah, we provide resources and services to all those different fringe participants that I mentioned, artists, industry, media, etc. Now, what we don't do, we don't market your individual show. As I said, that is down to you to pull your audience in. Um we don't run the venues or get involved in your contracts. I'll talk specifically about venues later, but the basically, if you if you book a venue, that's on you, and that's for you to understand your contract, what you're signing up for, what the money like deal is that you're getting into. We can help you to understand it, help you find the venues, give you information, but it's kind of over to you guys. We do not assign accommodation, we have resources to help you find the accommodation, but again, over to you to kind of decide what you want to book and what money you want to pay for that. We do not produce any of the shows. Um, sadly, I have had my producer days, but we're not involved in that aspect of it. So um, that's all the creative stuff is down to the individual. Um, we as I said before, we don't curate the fringe program, anyone's allowed to be there. Um, and we don't make the decisions for you. This is quite a good one because whilst we provide all this information and guidance, if you come to me and go, right, what venue should I perform at? I'm not gonna tell you what you should do. It's that's not my job, it's for you to make an informed decision about your work where you think it's gonna be best. My opinion is just an opinion, you know. For some people, I might be like, Oh, this venue, I love this venue. Other people might hate the venue, it's the arts, it's all a little bit subjective. So that's why ultimately all the decisions are for you to make, and that's because there's no right or wrong decision, and that's really tricky sometimes to get your head around because there feels like there's a right way to do things. There's not like if there was a right way to do things, I would. I mean, I love my job, I would quit it, and I would sell that for millions, and I would help everyone make millions because you know that would be the obvious thing to do, but there's not one way to do this, there's not a right or wrong answer. You have to just follow your gut and make that decision. Next slide, please. Just gonna briefly mention street events. This is something that's really um quite unique um to Edinburgh Fringe. So if you you've been before, there's um the Royal Mile, which is the mile that leads up to the um Edinburgh Castle. This is genuinely what it looks like for the whole month of August. It is bouncing at this time of the year. So our office just now is on the mile. If I go to if I go to the office, I don't go to the office that much. I tend to work from home, but if I do decide to venture through, it's not like this when I'm trying to get to the office, it's quieter, but there's certainly that that performer there is there all year round. They still have circle shows. Busking is a huge thing in Edinburgh, it's kind of you know a key part of um what started it all. So the registration and how to get involved for sheep performers is different from what I'm gonna talk about today. It's free, it's much more old-fashioned. It's literally you fill out a form um and then you turn up on the day that you want to perform. We put we gather in a circle, we put everyone's name in a hat, we pull out your name and go, you're performing at one o'clock today. Great. So it's very old school. So I just wanted to mention that for context. I'm not talking about artists when I like the sort of shows that we're gonna go on and speak about. This is purely for sheet performers. Um, great. Next slide, please. A little, yeah, fringe in numbers. This is not a brag by any means. This is just to try and communicate the scale of the festival because it is a beefy one. So, yeah, last year we sold 2.00 tickets um across the fringe. I think that was just through our box office because there are other box offices. Um, we represented 62 countries on the stage. It is a super international festival, both with the artists but with audiences as well. We registered 1,700 industry and over a thousand media as well, who are here to review shows. Next slide, please. So I'm now going to talk about when I'm going to talk about why to do the Edinburgh Fringe. Next slide here. So I'm going to split this into two reasons someone might choose to come to the Edinburgh Fringe. I will talk more specifically about what's your why later. But I think first and foremost, the fringe is a playground. It's a place where you can come and test out your work in front of audiences day in, day out, for a month if you choose to come for the full run. It is a real testing ground for your work. Now I um brought a show when I was a university student um back in 2017. I was the producer. There was 10 of us that, you know, and just 10 students, like a budding playwright and a stage manager, and I made my boyfriend do the tech, you know, and we we sort of cobbled together this team and put on a fringe show of our own. Um and it we we did a two week run. The show on day one, completely different from the show on day 14, because after like, you know, after the first couple of shows, we were like, oh God, that joke does not land. We need to change that, or that like the way that we've done that, um, you know, scene change is just scrappy. Like, and you know, you you literally experiment and try it and change. Your way through your run. And that is what one of the best things are about it. It's also a great way to start understanding your audience. As I say, it's an international crowd. Some days you might, you know, particularly we do some sort of discount days, you'll get a real Scottish audience in on those days because they're just, you know, hanging about on the skirts waiting for the discounts. They can just hop over on the train, go and see a show and leave again. You know, you test it out maybe in front of the Scottish audience and it lands and they get your humor. And then another day you get a tour bus full of, I don't know, European audience members and it doesn't land. And it's like, oh crap. So you're kind of constantly kept on your toes to test and try and experiment with your work. It's a playground in a sense, particularly for your marketing, to understand, you know, it's it's is that kind of um training ground to sort of see what works, what doesn't work, both for your own show but also for other shows. I often say to people, if you're if you're looking to understand marketing, no matter what industry you're in, walk down the Royal Mile during during August. Take a walk. I was gonna say it'll take you 10 minutes, it won't, it'll probably take you about an hour because it's there's so much going on. Walk down there, what catches your eye, what interactions with people are working, and why is it working? It's it's a really great place to interrogate that, like what's landing and what's not, and why, what's catching my eye and what's not catching my eye. Um, so yeah, next slide, please. Why you might come to the fringe as well is that it is a springboard for your career. So it is um a place where lot lots of you know successful people in the industry now have emerged. Um I did have a slide on this before, but it was a lot of UK references, and I was like, I don't know if these will translate, but some of some of the bigger names I think have translated are Phoebe Wallerbridge. She brought Fleabag up to the fringe, um, her one woman show, and that obviously turned into a TV series, and she's gone on to be um this huge sort of screenwriter as well. Um Richard Gadd is someone who's emerged sort of in the limelight in recent years. He's got his half man, half bull up at the minute, but it was also Baby Reindeer. That was his kind of fringe show that took off. Um, six the musical as well, that that came from um The Edinburgh Fringe, Rob Madge, My Son's a Queer, like lots of different things. So it is really that place where those sort of experiences can happen. Now, unfortunately, they don't happen overnight, even you know, even with likes of particularly Richard Gadd, he came to the fringe for years. It was years worth of building up relationships and connections. And that I think that was maybe his fourth show that he was bringing to Edinburgh, the the Baby Reindeer one. And there was one before that kind of had put him in in the spotlight for the industry, and that was Baby Reindeer, then took off for the sort of TV work. But yeah, there's there are those professional opportunities when you come to Edinburgh. If you are like, yeah, this is this is sort of what I want to do career-wise, and I need to start building connections and networking, it is a great place to at least start doing that work. You might get picked up overnight for overnight success. Not going to say it doesn't happen, but I would say more likely it's this opportunity to be in in Edinburgh in the month that kind of everyone else in the industry is there as well. You know, we bring in a hell of a lot of industry, it's the marketplace. So it's your chance to kind of be in those rooms, be at the bar next to that person, start those conversations, start understanding how the industry works, both in the UK but also um overseas as well. Next slide, please. So this is just to sort of um explain that point a bit more. What is the reach of the fringe? So, yeah, there are 300 fringe festivals across the world now, um, and more being born, as I was discovering at the World Fringe Congress. There's more starting up. Um we presented, we th well, we think we've presented, I did the maths on this with a colleague. So I'm it's not like in our official stats, but over 35,000 shows since um 2015. Um yeah, like the social media impressions, that's again just to relay the kind of international reach that we have. It is sort of on the map for a lot of people, which is really cool. Lots of media coverage, and we do lots of partnerships with kind of local initiatives and universities as well. Um, it's quite funny. Sometimes I find in the UK, if I say to people, if they're like, Oh, where do you work? And I'm like, Oh, have you heard of the Edinburgh Fringe? They're like, Yeah, maybe, I don't know, maybe. Being over here, being like um in like other sort of trips that I've gone on, I'm like, Oh, work for the Edinburgh Fringe, and it's like so it's it is, I think, almost more internationally, really, really known and has a big reputation. So um, yeah, that's yeah, that's this one. Let's go on to the next page.

unknown 27:21

Cool.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

So I'm gonna talk about how to do the Edinburgh Fringe. Um, yeah, keep rolling. Here we go. So two groups I'm gonna talk about artists and industry professionals. Um artists, we that means anyone who's involved in a show. So that could be your writer, the performer, the producer, anyone who's involved in your show, we consider you as an artist. It's not just the performer. And then your industry professionals are basically anyone who's coming to look at your show or to like offer an opportunity for your show. So that could be it could it could still be a producer of like a production company, it could be a venue programmer, a festival, anyone who's kind of coming to offer something and offer work. Um, so let's scroll to, I think scroll to, yeah, next one. Great, pause there. This is my YouTube channel. No, this is my colleague Martha and I. We've got a series of events up on YouTube. So um, if you manage to get through this presentation today and you're not sick of my voice, then this these videos do go into a little bit more detail about the different topics. It's interspersed with Martha, who has a lovely English accent. So do take a listen, even if it's just for her. Um, but I'm gonna do a bit of a whistle stop tour of that today. So we scroll to the next one. Yeah. So the artist journey, these are the key things I'm gonna speak about. It's really tricky. We my team and I really try every year. We're like, we need a step-by-step guide of step one, what is it you need to do? Step two, it doesn't work because there's there's no like one way to do the fringe. So this is this kind of my way to that. I would suggest that you do the fringe is by no means like official. It's just kind of a guide to understand what are the different things that you need to at least think about when you're coming to the festival. So, you know, working out your budget, securing a venue, registering your show, marketing, and then preparing for your time at the fringe. So we'll go on to the next one. First things first, why? This is the thing I say to every single artist that I am speaking to who's thinking about coming to the fringe. I'm like, why do you want to come to the Edinburgh fringe? And it might sound daft, but I swear to God, it catches every artist off because they're kind of like, oh, isn't it obvious? I'm like, well, I don't know, like what like what's your reason? What's what's your why? And that question is it's so important to ask and consider from the get-go because depending on what your answer is, depends what's going to be relevant and useful to you in coming to the Edinburgh Fringe. So some people say to me, um, why? Oh, because it's it's it's on my bucket list. I'm like, great, if it's on your if that's the only reason you're coming, there's a lot of things you don't need to do and worry yourself with or stress about. So you just come and have fun. If someone says to me, um, my why is because I want to get a review, I will instantly correct you and say, I imagine it's because you want a good review, not just a bad review. So if it, you know, it it I do that to manage expectations and help kind of uh understand what's possible when you're, you know, it is definitely possible to get a review. Can't guarantee it's gonna be one you like. So again, it's sort of helping people understand what's possible, what they can kind of do to help themselves. So I would just encourage you all to have a think about what is your why. You can have multiple whys, it can be on your bucket list, it's because you really want to try and connect with industry, you want to also try and get a review, but I would also encourage you to prioritize them because ultimately what's going to happen is you're in Edinburgh, you might be having uh one of one of the days in our beautiful weather that we have in Scotland where it's pissing it down with rain and it's really dark and gloomy, and you're trying to sell tickets to your show, you've got like no tickets sold, and you're trying to get people in, but there's a networking event that you really wanted to go to. And that's your kind of crunch moment where you have to go, what's my why? What, what, what do I need to focus on here? And I actually encourage folks to put their why on their phone as like your screensaver for August, so you can literally look at your phone and be like, My why was I'm here because I really want to try and make some connections. So in that moment, you might go, do you know what? I might be performing to no one today or like a very small audience, but ultimately I wanted to come here to make connections. So I'm gonna I'm gonna use that to make my decision and go to that networking event. Or it might be the other way, but it just it helps you in those kind of crunch moments decide what path or route to take because Edinburgh Fringe is noisy. There is a lot going on. I I've started coining it as the FOMO festival, like the fear of missing out festival. Because it's real and you do, you come to Edinburgh and you can you can be as prepared as I am, and you're like, I have I'm on a mission and this is what I'm gonna do. And then you're like, oh my god, there's this late night show happening at 1 a.m. and fuck it, I'm gonna go see it. And it's okay that I won't sleep because I really want to see that show. And and then suddenly you're like, oh god, no, I didn't get my eight hours I needed. So it's really crucial to try and hold ground yourself with that why when you come to the fringe and um yeah, reduce the FOMO as much as possible. Now, easier said than done. I've been working at the fringe now for like seven years. I think I cracked it about two, three years ago on like managing my time. And I'm not even putting on a show, I'm just like working my job. So I, you know, it's it's tough, but I would encourage you to try and think about it. We can go to the next slide. So, yes, budgeting. As I mentioned before, this is one of the things it's it's over to you to figure out what your budget is. I, you know, I don't need to know how much money someone's coming with or not, but I can certainly help advise on what kind of costs might be coming up, how much things might cost. Um, a lot of people come to me and say, I've got X amount of money to spend on marketing. Tell me what I should do. And I'm like, I don't know. Like you know your show better than I do. I I'm here to tell you what some of the options are that you could do and maybe brainstorm ideas with you and discuss it, but ultimately it's up to you. Like you know your show best. So just outlining here what some of the costs are um and some of your bigger costs, which are going to be particularly relevant for you as international artists. So, firstly, accommodation. Accommodation in Edinburgh can be expensive. It's the capital city. You're at the peak um summer holiday time for Scottish schools and English schools. Um it's it's not like it's it's quite it is expensive um in comparison to other cities, but it's not as expensive as London as I'd say, but it becomes as as expensive as London in August, which sucks and annoys me greatly. So accommodation is one of the things that's affected by that. We have an accommodation portal. We've tried to form partnerships with the university halls that are over in Edinburgh. So there's like fixed rate kind of, I was gonna say it is fixed rate, but it's affordable options. Depends what your gauge of affordable is, but we cap the prices at under 400 pounds for a week, and that's for one person in a student hall sort of setup. Um so they we again we don't own this accommodation, but we kind of have this portal that once you've registered, you can log into the portal. It's only available to artists. You can then book a room through that. We try and release the rooms in batches. So if you, you know, say if you decide after today, I'm inspired and I'm gonna come to Edinburgh this year, there will still be rooms that are released before you come. So that there's still that option there. Um, I think there's about usually about 1,000 rooms that we get on the portal, which is pretty good. Um, but again, your contract is directly with that accommodation and their kind of cancellation policies and whatever they they decide to do there. There's Airbnb, obviously, that you can book through. There's a site called Theatre Dig Digs Bookers. We share some of the if they fit our kind of criteria for affordable options, we'll share them. But Theatre Dig Bookers is basically Airbnb, but for folk who only want to let their rooms out to artists. So it's generally artists hosting artists, which is quite quite nice. Um there's been we weird and wonderful suggestions of creating like tenting villages and stuff for people to come and stay in. It's Edinburgh, the weather's grim, don't do it. Like just I would get I would get yourself some proper accommodation. Um, your venue, your venue, which I'll go into detail in it a bit, could cost you nothing, or it could be your biggest cost. There was there's one venue in Edinburgh, it's massive, it's a commercial venue all year round. I think that one to hire for the month is £50,000. So the scale is literally zero to like £50,000. Now, obviously, then therefore your average cost could. I'm trying to think, when I brought a show to the fringe, I mean this was 2017, I think I was about £1,400 for two weeks, and that was in like a black box theatre. It's a pop-up black box theatre that only exists in August. Um, and yeah, so but it's really tricky because it there's so many variables to it. It depends how long you're coming for, depends how many shows some people do, a show on, a show off. Um, depends the capacity, what the tech requirements are, like really varies, but I'll talk about that more in a bit. Your travel. I cannot help with that. It's just so the travel is what it is. Um, you then have a registration fee. That's your fee that you would pay to the fringe society in order to have that central box office, your um, and be part of the website and the app as well. Then it's over to you. What's your production costs? How much does it cost to put on your show? Do you need to buy some stuff when you're in Edinburgh? Your marketing, again, I've seen zero-pound marketing campaigns. I've heard into the thousands, tens of thousands on marketing. It varies, we'll talk about it properly. Licensing and insurance. You will have to get performer liability insurance in order to perform, but we have a partnership with them so that it's easy. We basically contact you and say, Have you got this yet? And then you sort it out. Music licensing as well. Um, this is also so sorry, two things. My brain is like popping with thoughts. Music licensing. If you are playing music in your show, you have to pay for music licensing. If you're playing music when the audience is coming in or going out, you don't have to. Um something to think about if you're coming to Edinburgh and you've got music in your show, it will be really cheap, easy to get the music licensing because of our partnership. If one of your ambitions is to tour your show, it might not be as easy to get those licenses on tour. Um, I've saw there's a shows sometimes with a lot of Disney music. Easy for Edinburgh, not so easy as soon as you take that on the road, or if you have like a film score or something. So something to think about as you're kind of developing your work. And then contingency, obviously. What if your umbrella breaks because of the wind in Edinburgh? You need to you need to have a little bit of cash for that. Income. Thinking about, yeah, how are you going to pay for this? Firstly, what what money do you have already that you're wanting to put towards it? If any, I didn't have any money to put towards my show, but we we had to purely fundraise for it. Um, so yeah, thinking, is that something you've got money you want to put towards it? What's your potential ticket revenue? I would always aim low. We have kind of, I think we advise you to um work on a 30% basis, like as though you're gonna sell 30% of your tickets just to kind of give yourself an idea. But you also need to think about concession prices if you're doing concessions. Are you doing two for one day? Um, I wouldn't count on your ticket revenue as being your moneymaker, basically, is my point. That I'd think of that as your like kind of little added bonus. Fundraising. I like an old-fashioned raffle, but we also have a partnership with like crowdfunders. Um, lots of people use that kind of crowdfunding platform to raise funds for the fringe. We also, if you're doing a crowdfunder, promote it on our website as well to try and encourage folk to um support you. Sponsorship. I think this is something that not everyone thinks about, but you know, maybe your show is exploring a particular theme. You could see if you could get some sort of sponsorship, whether that's cash or whether that's like in kind in marketing or a shout-out on someone's newsletter on the basis you put put their logo on your flyers or your marketing material, whatever that might be. And then formal funding routes. Now, this is this is probably the worst one for everyone. I don't know if there are any formal funding routes. Yeah, like sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. In Scotland, there basically is no formal funding routes for Scotland-based artists, other than sort of specific. We run like a showcase, but there's not like a sort of open pot that everyone can go for through our our arts council council, who are our kind of funding body. But do think about is there local pots of money that you can apply for? Is there somewhere in your kind of local town or an arts center or local government that can kind of help support you in coming across? For the last two years, we've done a fund called the Keep It Fring, um, which is it was started by Phoebe Wallerbridge, who was our president. She basically gave us a lot of cash and was like, I want this to go directly to the artists. I don't want them to have to do any reporting. And we were like, they have to do a little. I agree. We need we need like three. So I think we've got it down to a three question report. Um, yeah, and she was like, That's that's what I want to do with this money. So we divvied that up over two years to try and like help the fund go out to people. We then used that to get a keep it fringe US fund last year and I think the year before. It was a smaller pot, but we still did it. All that money's dried up. We are at the moment where we're trying to find our own sponsors for this donors, investors, that sort of thing. But I I say this to say it's worth if you're coming to Edinburgh, having keep keeping an eye on our newsletter and stuff and kind of knowing that in the background we are trying to get more funding into the artist's pocket. Next slide, please. So finding a venue. I've alluded to this a couple of times, so I will actually go into it now. It is your job to find a venue, but we have some resources to help you. We've got our venue search tool, so you can go onto our website and be like, I kind of want a 30 capacity venue, um, it needs to be wheelchair accessible, which is tricky in Edinburgh, I will admit, you know, and kind of put in some search filters and it'll bring up um venues that are relevant or maybe applicable to you. Really, though, it is just a case of doing your research. If you've never been to Edinburgh, if you've never been to Edinburgh before, I would advise using our venue search tool. We've got an extensive guide which has photos and um descriptions, which is very useful. We run an event every year, usually in December and or January called Find the um, no, what's called Finding a Venue, I think, where we invite venue programmers to talk about their venues and how you get get involved in their program. So that's kind of the structure of it. We're Edinburgh, Fringe, we don't own the venues. There's then venue operators, they run the venues, they run their own programs. For some of these venues, there's a seat up at the front here if you want, run here. These venue programs, they um programmers, sorry, some of the venues you will apply for and put in an application and they have a curated program for their venue. Some of them, it's just more of a case of can I book that venue, please, at this time? Yep, cool. Here's the money. Great, you keep all the tickets. Some might do a bit of a box office split, but then there are those free venues that I mentioned earlier. So you can sign up for the free fringe, who's a venue operator. They have lots of spaces across the city. You basically tell them how long you're here for, what your show is, and they will allocate you a space. Um, so you kind of have less control in that one over what you know your eventual space ends up like. But the deal is it costs zero pounds. You then get your sort of ticket sales or people will do like pay what you can on the door, that goes straight into your pocket. So that is a sort of uh lower risk way in terms of financially like way to access the fringe. If in the situation that no one gave you a venue, free fringe was booked up, all the sort of curated venues were booked up, you could set up your own venue. Now we have registered. I've I've been to a show before it was in someone's garden. I've been to a show where it was under a tree and they read we helped them register the tree as a venue or the lamppost or you know, whatever quirky space it is. My sister. Um is bringing a show to the fringe this year just for one night. She couldn't find a venue partly because it was just one night. It wasn't as of interest to the venues to book her. So I just put her in touch with this office space. It's like a co-working office space who I had happened to be chatting to, and they were like, Oh, we maybe want to do a fringe in 2027, but not or be a fringe venue next year, not sure yet. I basically was like, why don't you use my sister as a guinea pig? So she's she's chatted with them, did a venue visit, and they've set up a deal, and that's where she's going to perform. So there's kind of lots of different ways. Like, as I say, no one can say no to you coming to the fringe. So we've got um, yeah, lots of options to help you out. Time slot is a question that everyone asks me. What time should I perform? There is no golden rule, other than if you're doing a children's show, don't be a 9 p.m. slot. Just, you know, you want to be at a family-friendly time. Otherwise, it is a little bit like anything goes. I there was a show a couple of years ago, this big theater production. They were getting lots of funding. It was like really slick um production that was ready to tour. And they had a 4 p.m. time slot in a venue, which they were like, that's the perfect time slot. This is great. It fell through at the last minute, just basically like um their the capabilities of the venue, it it changed so they couldn't put on the show anymore. The only venue they could find was at 10:30 in the morning, and they came to me and they were like, sorry, we're gonna have to pull out, like, we can't do that show at 10:30 in the morning. And I was like, Well, you can like why don't you try? So they basically did it, and it was hugely successful because they got so many industry through the door because the industry weren't seeing anything else at 10 30 in the morning, so they really made it work for them. So I say that just to be like, we're all creatives. If you get a time slot that you think, oh shit, you can turn it around. It might just take a little bit of grafting, a little bit of creative thinking, but you can make it work. Next slide, please. Show registration. I've got a couple of slides, by the way, and then I will pause for like questions. So um I'm I'll just rattle through these bits. Registration. So if you want to participate in the fringe, you can. You don't have to pay us a registration fee. You can just rock up and do it. However, if you want to be part of our formal program that we kind of advertise, part of our central box office so we can help sell tickets and part of like the app and the website, you need to register with us. The registration fees are tiny, but it also is irrelevant because we're going to be changing them soon. They've been frozen for the last 18 years. We are working really hard to keep them as low as possible. Um, but yeah, 18 years of a freeze is challenging. So we are looking at different models and ways that we can do the registration fee. But currently, the minimum fee you'll pay is £96 and the maximum fee you'll pay is I think £393. Um, there we do early bird discounts and stuff to get, you know, keep those costs low. But currently we do it based on how many shows you're doing. That's kind of how yeah, we do the registration fees. Um as I say, we market the shows that are paid have paid a registration fee, like that we market them as part of our program. Through this, you also get access to all our services that like I run. So this sort of like advice support, fringe central, which I'll mention in a bit, events and whatnot. I will say all of that is particularly the ones who want advice and meetings that we do, totally available to you without registering. Like I have where we don't sort of check um if you're a registered show for that. Like I am happy to talk to literally anyone about bringing a show to the fringe. The only thing I can't give you is um contact details. So I can't give you media contact details and I can't give you industry contacts, and that's purely because of GDPR and the sort of rules we have around that. So basically, the what you're paying for in your fee is contacts, and then to have these core services of the box office and the website. Next slide, please. Marketing, the beast that is marketing. See, in Hollywood friends, what like is it flyering that you do, or what's the kind of main means of marketing if anyone wants to shout out? Yeah. I'll be collecting some of them, please. Yeah. Networking events as well. Cool, amazing. Okay, so there'll be some things then that are like we also have those kind of postcards, we call it our flyers, networking events. You can totally come up to and try and promote your show. Um really, I talk about physical marketing and digital marketing. Digital, it's also your obviously your social media campaigns. Um I kind of have my three post rule. Um, so for every three posts that you do about your show, only one should be talking about your show, which sounds counterproductive, but I promise there's a theory to it. So one of your posts is like, come and see my show. It's on at this time, this venue, this is where you buy the tickets. Second post is doing something to engage your followers and engage your audience. So it might be like, This is my first time in Edinburgh. Any recommendations on where I should get my morning coffee? Um, is there any foods that I should be trying whilst I'm in the city? Um, I'm gonna go see some shows tonight. Any recommendations? So, nothing about your show, just about getting some chit-chat, basically, you know, doing polls or doing something that's encouraging your audience to feedback. Then the third post should be something about the wider thing that's going on, the fringe, and showing that you're kind of a part of it, creating that FOMO for other people. So posting like, saw this show last night, it was amazing, highly recommend tagging the show. That might get a reshare on their um platform. Thanks so much for the coffee recommendation. These guys are going to be my morning go-to. Tag the coffee shop, another potential v-share over there. So it's doing things that show like, look at me, I'm part of this festival, I'm here, I'm active, this is what's going on. The people that just post about their show, all you get is an unfollow because it's uh is a lot of noise happening. And you so you want to actually create content that's interesting. Um, and the sort of side bit to it is that they discover your show by being on your page. There's so key things in Edinburgh for physical marketing. You've got flyering, which is kind of like the postcards you have. Um, that is literally about it's really old-fashioned traditional, going out on the street, try and convince someone to come and see your show. It is exposing. I have done this myself. It is a great education in what works when you talk about your show and what doesn't, what catches people's eye and what doesn't. You'll see a lot of creativity when it comes to the um flyering. I've seen people make big cardboard cutouts, I've seen cool costumes, I've seen folk doing acapella singing. When we did it, our show was um a farce of a farcical comedy um about what happens in heaven on God's Day Off when the angels are left in charge of the prayer machine. So we had 10 of us head to toe dressed in white, and literally just like white skinny jeans from Primark, like a white t-shirt. We bought fluffy halos and fluffy angel wings, and we flyed as a group of 10 because no one else was doing that when we were out flyering. Everyone was sort of dispersed, and we thought, well, if we stand together, we're just this vision in white. And that like lures people to us, and it literally did because they just saw 10 young people having fun. And you know, genuinely, we were just having a bit of a laugh when we were doing it and we were trying different things, or maybe trying different accents when we were like doing the flyering and just shaking it up a bit, and people would genuinely come over to us and just be like, Oh, who are you? Like, you you seem cool, and we're like, We're not come and see our show. Like, I try and just turn that interaction into a ticket sale. So I will say it's a Marmite situation. Some people hate flyering. I was I wasn't the biggest fan of it as I started because you do have that moment of like, ah, how do I start? You don't have to do flyering by any means. I think I speak to a lot of artists who are like really anxious because they're like, I have to fly her. And I'm like, you absolutely don't have to fly her. There are a million ways to fly your show. Get creative. If you don't want to fly her, what else do you want to do? What are you comfortable doing? What are your skills? Like, there's no point in putting someone out on the mile who's really shy and doesn't want to interact, like that's a waste of time. So yeah, I've got lots of hints and tips and tricks about flyering. So if you ever want them, I will happily speak to them about them. But yeah, that's the main thing with the flyers, just it's not something you have to do. If you want to do it, it can be really good fun. You can do it solo. You can also hire people to fly your show for you. If you do that, I would just recommend that they see your show. I can see through someone who's not seen the show. Because you know, if someone flyers me, I'll be like, oh yeah, and I'll I'll interact with them and ask questions. As soon as I ask a question and they're like, Yep, don't know. I'm like, well, you've not seen the show, so stop trying to sell it to me. Um, the other, so we there's big poster boards. So you see in that picture there, you're not allowed to just fly post in Edinburgh. You have to pay someone to do the big poster boards. We have one company in Edinburgh that does it, and that's because they're chosen by the Edinburgh City Council. All of the information's on our website, but again, that's just a signpost. You would book it directly through them. Um, these poster boards line the city. You can't turn up in Edinburgh and not know the fringes going on. They they're they range from these massive big ones or these sort of smaller kind of A3 size ones that you see there. The prices vary a couple of hundred, a couple of thousand pounds, depending on what it is you want. You pick a package, I believe the process might have changed, but you pick a package or a zone, and that's where your your your boards will be distributed in that zone. The company then takes care of it if it's like graffitied or anything, like they'll kind of sort that out. But yeah, that's kind of how the big postboards work. The main thing I want to talk about with marketing though is word of mouth. Words of mouth is the thing that sells fringe shows, I would say. You can have all the marketing in the world, but if if someone comes up to me and goes, I saw the show last night, so good, you have to see it. I've booked a ticket before I've even looked up what the show is. Like that feeling, it's the FOMO feeling of like, oh no, no, no, I'm gonna miss the next flea bag. Side note, I missed Six the Musical because I was in a bad mood and I just didn't go, and I was just really tired. My team were all like, oh, we're gonna go see this musical. And I was like, Oh, I do not want to see a musical right now. I was like, Oh, what's it about? And they're like, Oh, it's a musical about Henry VIII and his six wives. And I was like, That sounds crap. I'm not gonna see that. I'm not spending a tenner on that. And then yeah, I paid eight pounds for the privilege to go and see it a few years later. Um, so yeah, there it's but it is creating that FOMO feeling of like this it like this is the thing to see. So, how how'd you do that? My tips and tricks on how to do it are for your first couple of shows, get bums on seats. No matter what it takes, you just get bums on seats. So that is the day you pull in all your favours. Being from Scotland, my family live in Scotland, my friends are in Scotland, my pals were all in Scotland. It was quite easy for me to put bums on seats because I forced them and just was like, that's tough luck. You have to come to my first show. Um, international artists though, this is where you want to use your network. You want to use your Hollywood fringe network and be like, who else is in Edinburgh? Let's all go to each other's first shows. Um, who's who's friend of a friend of a friend lives in Edinburgh who you can like pull on their network and try and get them in? So it's, I think sometimes people are like, God, I don't know anyone, I'm coming by myself. You will know people who are coming. Ellen, um, you know, of Hollywood Fringe, tell her you're going. She'll know people that she can say, guys, go into that first show, you know. So you just try and pull all your favors for your first couple of shows. Because those people that you pulled in the favor for, you can then go back to them and say, Hey, thanks so much for seeing my show and buying a ticket and paying full price. Um, now could you go on to the listing on the website and leave me an audience review? Now can you go and post about this on social media, please, and help create that buzz? Don't do what my family did, which was post their full name. So it was like Colette Fraser, Neil Fraser, Catherine Fraser on my audience listing, and my mum being like, well done to my middle daughter for such an amazing show. I was like, ah, don't do that. So don't let that happen. But um, yeah, basically that's what you're trying to do. It's kind of like a busker putting the first tenor in their hat. That's all you're trying to do on your first couple of shows. Um, so doing that is a really good way. Making best friends with your box office team. So whilst we've got essential box office where a lot of audiences buy tickets, whatever venue you're part of, they'll also have their own box office and their own front of house team who are running, running the venue. They are your best friends, they are your extended marketing family. Um it's a fringe. Things sometimes go wrong. It's sometimes someone's first time teching a show. It can be a bit scrappy, it can get a bit frustrating if you're in a venue and you're a bit stressed and it's not going right. And you know, you might not feel like you want to be their best friend, is the point that I'm making. I think it goes a long way to lead with kindness in these moments because ultimately they are the ones selling your show. I often, I'll finish work, I'll run to the nearest like venue box office, and I'll be like, I want to go see something funny. Like, I need a laugh after my day. What should I go and see? And they will tell me what shows I should go and see and what shows I should not go and see. And that's often not necessarily based on the shows they've seen. It's based on the artists they've interacted with and who they want to support and who they want to kind of platform. So if you can go that extra mile and have a little bit of patience, a little bit of kindness when you're dealing with these venue staff who are, you know, trying to pull it all together at the last minute as well, it can go a long way. It's even just being the friendly person who goes up and says, How's your day going? Like, how's it been? You were on day two, how's the text gone? And just having those interactions with them because ultimately someone comes looking for a recommendation, they are allowed to recommend your show. I'm not. I have to be really impartial and really like all of the shows are my favorites. The venues don't have to do that. So they, yeah, it's worth your while getting to know your team that are around you. Um, and yeah, just sort of having that support for one another. Next slide, please. Preparing for your time at the fringe. This is something that people really forget to do. Um, we focus so much on the admins, so much on the show, getting everything ready that you forget what am I gonna eat? How am I gonna look after myself? How am I getting from my accommodation to you know Edinburgh each day or to the venue? Like what's what's the kind of actual practical bits gonna look like on the ground? What apps do I maybe need to download? I was just talking to um a producer today who's coming over to the fringe for the first time this year, the Edinburgh Fringe. And she said to me, she was like, Oh, I hear there's like a meal deal at a Tesco. And I was like, Oh yeah, there is, and it's like £3.95 for a meal deal where you get a sandwich, a snack, and a drink, but you have to have a Tesco Club card. So there's that sort of like insider knowledge. That's where I'm like, come and speak to us because we can be like, here's some little tips and tricks and things that you need to do. We're not sponsored by Tesco, by the way. There are other supermarkets available. Um, so yeah, thinking about that practicality on the ground. What does that look like? Um, you know, even things like just making sure you know where the like the nearest pharmacy is, maybe where the nearest hospital is, if you need that, those sort of like just practical things that you you you need to know getting around a new city. Um, rest and recharge. How are you looking? How are you like taking a pause and looking after yourself? As I say, it's Edinburgh Fringe is the FOMO capital of the festival landscape. It how are you gonna really take care and make sure you tap out and have those moments to recharge your battery? For me coming through, so I live in Glasgow, so I move through to Edinburgh every year. So I'm kind of in the same situation as you will be. I'm renting a room. I am renting it from my friend, so it's a little bit more comfortable, but I I am renting it. I don't have all my stuff that I need and I want. I don't have my dog. I, you know, I have I've got like a limited selection of tupleware, not my full selection. So it's thinking for me, the prep that I need to do is food prep in advance, you know, because we we are working all the time. So how am I going to eat and make sure I'm not just buying junk food when I'm out? I know from years of experience that I need eight hours sleep, otherwise, I'm not a nice person and there's no point in me going to work. Yeah. So I have to set myself a rule of no shows past midnight. Because if I if any if I go to a show that runs past midnight, I am not getting up when I need to come to work the next day. So that's just a boundary I have had to set. Don't get me wrong, I break that rule quite a lot, and I'll be like, it's fine, I can do a late start tomorrow. But generally speaking, I really stick to my rules. So just thinking about what are those things for you that'll help you look after yourself. We have a partnership with a mental health and well-being charity called Health in Mind. They have worked with us for the last four years now and are just the loveliest people in the world. And they from the end of May offer free one-to-one, like well-being check-ins, essentially, with artists. So any of you that are coming this year, like as of now, basically you can email them and just have a Zoom call with them, have a check-in, which I'd recommend you do because it basically means you've got another friendly face. You've got me, and then you've got them as your two friendly faces of the fringe. Um, then during August, they'll be there in person. So you can book appointments again with them throughout the month. Um, you could book yourself a check-in every week if you wanted to, just to so you know you've got that in the diary, you've got at least an hour a week where you're gonna just talk to someone who's not involved in your show. They you can talk to them about the fringe if you want to, but they they they couldn't be there to talk about anything. You know, you might be a bit homesick or you might be feeling a bit lonely or something. You know, so they're there just to talk about whatever you want. And they, whilst we signpost you to them, we don't get any data on who's using the service or when or why. So it's completely private. Um, you can also do online sessions with them during the month as well if you want. And there's no cap to how many sessions you can have with them. So um, yeah, I that's why I encourage people to book ahead. And if you feel like you don't want it, you know, it's day four and you're like, I don't need that, cancel it, that's fine. But you know, having them in the diary for yourself is a good proactive way to know that you're looking after yourself. Um yeah, shows to see. You're at yeah, the biggest festival in the world. Go and enjoy it. Like go and take a chance on a show, go and see something that you would never see before, go and support that show that's maybe on before you or on after you in your venue. Like just go and enjoy the festival scene and really soak up the creativity that's there. Places to eat. I have all the cheap eat recommendations. I know everywhere to get cheap food and cheap booze. So hit me up. I will let you know where to go. Um, yes, that's so basically prepare for your fringe. Final thing before I pause for questions on the next slide is we're we have this building this year. Oh, please go next one. Thank you. There we go. We have this building this year called Fringe Central, which is really exciting. So every August, anyway, we have a participant hub called Fringe Central, but we just rent it for the month and then move out. And it's a pain in the arse, to be honest with you. So we finally got funding um a couple of years ago to take over this building in Edinburgh, right bang in the middle of everything. It's kind of between the Royal Mile and this area called George Square, where a lot of like the um like circus tents and there's like uh food trucks and bars and stuff. So we're right in the middle of that. This is your home away from home during August. This is the place that you come to relax, reset, charge your phone without having to buy a coffee, use the Wi-Fi, people take naps. Um, and I have the fun job sometimes of being like, are they dead or alive? They're alive, it's fine. They're just having that. Um, this is where, well, this year all the teams will be based there, but um, my team in particular are there. We are on hand for the whole month if you need anything. If you want to, if you if you're like about to go flyer and you're like, oh, I'm feeling nervous and you need a pep talk, come to my office. I will give you that pep talk to be like, go on, you can do this. Um if you are having, I don't know, if you're kind of like, oh, the show's going really well. I actually want to understand the industry side more. You need a bit of advice, I can talk to you. Um, yeah, if you want advice on your media or your marketing or your sort of touring ambitions and next steps, like kind of whatever you need, come and speak to us. And if I'm not the person who knows it or my team aren't, we'll we'll sign post you to the right person. If you're having an issue with your venue, we can also um provide a sort of impartial moderation service as well and kind of guide you through that process. Um, if it's just even if it's, it doesn't even need to be as formal as that. Even if you're just like, oh, there's this situation going on, I just don't quite know how to navigate it. We can be there to give you that impartial advice and support on maybe what you can try for your next steps. This is where we will run our networking events, our panel discussions. There's a program of free events that we run all throughout the month. We also have sessions that are just like a solo artist get together, international get together, disabled artist meetup. And they're literally places where you don't have to network and you can just come and be like, Oh my god, how's it going? And just like meet other people who are in the same boat as you as well. Um, as the program this year, I think we've got about 40 events happening, all completely free. Um, and one of the key things, as I've sort of alluded to a few times, is you can book in a one-to-one meeting with myself and my team. It's me, Martha, and Millie. I really am gutted that my name doesn't begin with an M. My middle name is Marie. So I was kind of alluding to maybe we do Marie, Martha, and Millie. But um, you can come and speak to one of the M's, and we will, yeah, we can have those meetings with you like now, like online, obviously. We can just chat to you about your fringe plans and give you that really bespoke specific advice. So if you come to me and you're like, these are my goals, how should I spend my fringe? I can give you some resources and I can say these events in particular would be really good for you, and just provide that really like bespoke guidance. Um, next slide, please. Which I think is oh, thank you. Yeah, next one, the blue one here. Yeah, just some questions there. Anyone got any questions just now? I appreciate I've just put a lot of information at you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Um, I was just curious how like my only experience is the whole thing. Yeah. Um, and I know that one of the venues that are fringe-proof. We go to them, there's like uh three uh show packages, five show packages package. Like they have the setup and then they tell you the dates based on ADC News information. Is it the same that Edinburgh or even like kind of if it's available?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:04

So what you would do for Edinburgh is you for finding a venue, you would first do your research about what kind of venues there are, and you would probably from that short list, like, oh, there's like I don't know, five to ten venues that I like the look of, they're the right capacity, they're maybe the stage size that I want. That yeah, that's that's on my sort of top favorites list. Then you would look at who's running that venue. So it might be like assembly, they're a venue operator, it might be the space you came. We've got a green side as well. So there's lots of different venues basically. You then go onto their website and follow whatever their process is. So it could you could end up emailing lots of different venues about their spaces, um, which is a bit annoying. Like there's not that sort of one stop and then it disperses. But it might be that you do an application form for the for assembly. They'll they're mostly across the board asking for the same information, but it's gonna be like, what's your show? What dates are you looking for, um what the show is about, a bit of like target audience and whatnot. And then they kind of will run whatever their selection process is.

unknown 1:09:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

You might be in the situation where you're like, ah, I've got three offers, three do I go with, and that's for you to kind of pick, but you can obviously chat to us about that and we can help you navigate it. You might be in the position where none of the venues have taken you on board, and you're like, okay, I need to go back to the drawing board and do that research again. So yeah. Um, yeah, so that's kind of how it works, and that's where um it's it's tricky. Like, there's not, I've not come across someone who's not ever got a venue, like who's just been, you know, because because even like as I say with my sister, we got her a venue at the end of the day, like manage to put her in touch with someone. So um there'll always be a way. It's just you might not get your top pick, essentially. Right. Might be worth me saying that the venues are often pop-up venues. So it'll be a room like this, and they will turn this into a black box venue and they'll bring in lighting rig. So you might be, yeah, exactly. It's a great example. You might be in like a university building and it's a lecture hall that they've changed into a theater, or it might be the basement of a bar that they've turned into a so they're they're quite, yeah, they're my favorite ones. So it might be a bit scrappy around the edges, but yeah. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, great. Hiya.

unknown 1:10:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

Um, so I'm thinking about doing about 2027.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:31

Nice. Gonna try to follow this summer for at least like only five days. Yeah. Swing it. And I guess I'm curious if you had any recommendations of how I could make the most of visiting it to help it set up better for fall.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

Amazing. I'll just repeat the question because this is yeah, brilliant. So, yeah, basically coming to the fringe this year for a bit of a recce trip um with plans to bring a show in 2027. So, kind of how best to use that time. So, um, I think that's great that you're coming over for a recce trip. That is kind of one of my top recommendations. If you can afford to come over and see it before you come, great. Obviously, that's a bit of an expense, so it's not always possible. What I would say to you is email me and I will give you my email address at the end. But I'll give you what's called a project pass. And that means you can come to that French Central building and come to some of the free events and just start to like experience the thing and you know, listen in and kind of be a bit of a sponge and soak up other people's top tips and talk to folk and um be in those networking spaces. Also, it feels really cool having a lanyard when you're part of a festival. That's why I give them out because I'm like, it feels fun than when you're here. I think basically you I would use it to explore the venues that you're interested in. So if you've got time before you come to look through our guides and as I said, they're quite hefty, but even just scroll through and find a couple of venues that you're like, yeah, I like the look of that. Go and see a show in that venue and just experience it and see see what you think, and that'll help you understand how they all work. When you're doing your research of like what venue, I would probably try and find a show that's similar to yours. So say if you're a stand-up comedian, just go to the stand-up comedian section of the program and literally just start looking through what venues are people performing at, Google them, be like, yeah, that sounds good, or nope, that looks hellish, onto the next one, and just kind of use that as your starting point for your research.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:29

People like if I wanted to say meet with a feminine or potential producer and alpha, is it is it just like so crazy that somebody gets to talk to you?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:39

Mostly. Not that they don't want to, but it's um if you're like, yeah, like the programmer of a venue is not going to meet with you in August, usually, because their priority is the artists that are booked with them for that month. So, but I'd also say you don't need to, though. I don't think it's at that point, you don't need to meet with anyone, even before you apply to a venue, you don't even have to have spoken to them before. Um, so yeah, don't worry about trying to set up meetings. I would worry about going to see shows in the venues and understanding the space because there might also be a venue that you find and you're like, oh my god, I love it. And then you go to it and you're like, oh, this I'm I'm a musical theater show. This venue doesn't do musical theater that much. It wouldn't make sense for you to apply to that venue then. So it also will help you get an understanding of these venues. So then when you do do that application or you do reach out to them post fringe to set up an online call or uh, you know, email them with some questions, you're coming from an informed place.

unknown 1:13:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:38

Yes. Um, the pass we were telling her for all the events on the fringe central. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

The teams that are already registered and they go to the event or gonna get passes as well. Yes, great question. So, yeah, if you're doing a show and you're registered, you will get an artist pass from us, but also from your venue. So, yeah, artist pass with us, you can come to any and all events. Um, and artist pass with your venue usually means don't want to speak on behalf of the venues, but usually means you can see shows for free in that venue. I mean the paradise green. Yes. So if there's a show on in Paradise Green or yeah, that hasn't sold out, you basically just get stand there, stand there, and then the front of house staff will be like, yeah, go in, you can go in and fill it, fill the seats. And that's a really great way to get people to come and see your show on like your first date. You could go and say to all the other shows in your venue, my show's on tonight. Do you want to come and see mine for free? And I'll come and see yours to kind of give that support and boost those numbers on the first first couple of shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:37

Great. Yes, Haya.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:38

Hi. I was wondering if you've got any excitings of like why the productions do what they have to store things in the city between the floor and this.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:47

Excellent question. That reminds me to say when you when it comes to venues, don't assume anything. Don't assume it's got a backstage area. Don't assume it comes with a chair. If it doesn't say it comes with it, it does not come with it. So make no assumptions when you book that venue. Yes, storage is tricky. Really, really tricky in Edinburgh. Um, if you have big set, you have to negotiate that with your venue before you book it. Um, be really clear on what what's included and what's not. When I brought a show, I think it was like a square meter of like storage. So it was like enough for me to stand in. And I was like, that's not helpful. So I it's really limited in storage space. So yeah, priority is understand with your venue what's what the offers are. They might have options for you to be able to rent more storage potentially. Um, there's no central place that like we don't run any storage, um, for example. So the other option I would say is to speak with your accommodation, but then you might have to be carting stuff back and forth every day. But start with your venue, speak with them because if they don't have anything, they will know who does and who's kind of near and close by to them. Um but just make it a one-person show with like with a hat. So no. Yeah, just yeah, great, just do that. I think you'll you'll be absolutely fine. Fabulous. Hello.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:16

I have a specific question about fun or anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:18

Other people get to be crowdfunding classrooms.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:22

So that was and we saw that do you need a UK bank account to take the um with so we have something called Fringe Makers, which is a partnership with Crowdfunder. And the the deal is you don't pay, I think it's you don't pay their sign-up fee, or there's a certain fee with them that if if you do it through the fringe, you you save money basically, which is only available to people with a UK bank account. But crowdfunder in general, I don't think so. Just a UK one, and there's other versions of crowdfunder platforms. I'm I literally I did I didn't do mine through crowdfunder, it was through another one. But there's basically different companies that you can run crowdfundings through. There's even like just giving as well, that might be a UK-based one, but there's other sort of platforms. Whether we can then share them or not, I'm not actually 100% sure because I'm not um on the website team, but it's you can certainly still set one up and be like, this is part of the fringe and um still promote it to like fringe audiences. Okay, great. And here's hiya.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

I know that you have the fringe marketplace. Yes, just very briefly, like you can turn around my head around exactly like what it is like going that gives you access.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:37

That is the perfect segue to the next section of my presentation. So let's scroll down. We'll yes, we'll talk about industry. So if you keep going. There you go. So I will get onto marketplace if this is all useful context. So industry coming to the fringe. As I mentioned, we've got your programmers, big hotshop bookers, producers, and whatnot, lots of TV people coming to the fringe. We have a team that helped them with their process. So they yeah, this is it in numbers last year. About 1700 industry professionals came. 1,300 of them were here to shop for shows. So if I go to another festival, I'm considered to be industry because I work for the Edinburgh Fringe. I though don't have any booking powers because we're an open access festival. So I'm not there to shop for shows, I'm there to network. Um, so but 1,300 of the people who come to Edinburgh or came last year were here to actively provide opportunities, which is really cool. 860 of them were not in the UK. Um, we're yeah, non-UK countries from like, yeah, 64 different countries across the world. So a huge, huge number of folk that are in town. We can just scroll to the next one, please. Oh, yeah, keep scrolling because this is all um irrelevant. That one, there we go. So we run our industry accreditation, um, which is just the industry registration. Um, when industry register with us, they basically go through a betting process. Um they need to tell us everything about their career and be like, who are you, who do you work for, why are you here, what it what is it you're trying to get out of the experience, what yeah, what genre are you interested in, as much information as we can get from them as possible. We then put all that information into a Mahoosive database, which we call the industry list. Then I would speak to you and be like, cool, so you're coming to the UK, you're really interested in touring to venues across Europe, in particular, theater venues. Great. Here's a list of people that might be relevant for you to reach out to. Um, that means then you then have those contact details. Obviously, you can try and invite them to your show. Yep, you can try and invite them to your show or um yeah, get them in, uh get a meeting with them potentially. I would say it's a longer process with the industry than it is with um, you know, the media. The media it's like now and happening, but with the industry, this is a relationship building thing. But that's the sort of thing we can advise one-to-one. Um so fringe marketplace. Can you scroll to the next one? I think about picture. Yeah, this is fringe marketplace. This is basically if you're coming to the fringe with professional goals, and that means, you know, I am ready to take the next step in my career. I'm ready, I've got a show that's ready to tour or ready for screen development. Um, you're not just kind of here to test it out. You want to be on the fringe marketplace platform. You fill out it's it's kind of like an application for, but like if you want to be on the platform, you can be. We do just try and help guide you because sometimes we get applications in and we're like, this isn't the right fit for you. I've got a better resource that's gonna help you. So it's that's what it is. But basically, you fill out a form, you create a listing that's not like come and see my show. It's like, I am a professional and I'm looking to tour. And this is the information about what I need for touring. Like, so much more that kind of chat. Then gets put onto this mini website that only the industry who have a proven capacity, be capacity to book work, only they get access to this platform. They can then browse those shows. They can search by genre, they can search by dates, whatever it is. They can then look at your listing and understand your show from a professional point. You might put a full recording of your show, you might put a trailer, you might put a little show reel up, some production photos, whatever it might be. And the good thing about this platform is that it lives on year-round. So, year-round, we're promoting this to the industry and encouraging them to use this platform to connect with artists. Um, you can submit to the platform until the end of September. So if you did a submission now and then actually post-friendly, you're like, oh, I got some really good reviews or I got some production photos, you can still update your profile. Um, and it's just a way for us for the industry to kind of cut out the sort of student productions, amdram, bucket listers, and only search the like shows that are really here and looking for those opportunities. But yes, I think we're gonna wrap up just now. I can still kick about for some questions for a little bit if we can. Yeah, we can do that. Amazing. Um, but hopefully that is a little bit of a whistle stop tour on how to come to the Edinburgh fringe. Thank you. Thank you. So if any does anyone have any questions, or I can sort of come round. Yes, I'll hand it out actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:28

I'll pop a little box here. So if you need to dash off, you can just grab one. Um, this is our team email, so it'll still come to me, basically. It's me, me, Martha, or Millie that's gonna get this email. Um, yeah, I'll pop these over here for anyone that wants to grab one. Oh, there we go. Yeah, any questions that people want to bring to the room? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:47

Not an exact science, but that depends on what kind of experience you want, but with the full-up same shows, uh, what do you think is like the percentage of like flyering versus stain shows versus love it? Taking care of yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:05

I would say for the when it comes to marketing your show, it's quality over quantity. It's not about being out for eight hours a day flyering. That's not useful. Um, so for me, what I did with the team was think we had a 4 p.m. show. So we would do a team meeting in the morning just to check in what's the plan for the day. We'd then head to the mile together. We do 10 minutes of bad flyering to get out our system. So we do 10 minutes of come and see my show, come and see me show, come see me, just to get get out. We'd regroup and I'd be like, Cool, let's go, let's go do 20 minutes and regroup here. We do 20 minutes of flyering, come back, and basically use that comeback moment to go, is this working? Did that is everyone okay? Does any, you know, do we want to shake it up? Cool, let's go out and do another, let's do half an hour, come back, check in and do it in those short bursts because sometimes we'd be out and we'd be like, this is not clicking today. And we'd be like, Cool, let's just call it a day, or let's move somewhere else. Some days we'd be like, Oh my god, I've just found the way to sell the show. Like everyone do what I'm doing. And you know, so that's what we kind of do. So even if you're coming by yourself, I would do that just to kind of set yourself, like put a timer on, sort of thing, and just be like, go out and do a bit, come back, take a break, take a coffee. But really, no, I wouldn't be expecting you to be out flying more than like two, three hours a day. Like it's it's short, sharp, and punchy. How much to see shows as much as you can, like see, see as many as you can. Like that, that's no limit. Go go and see as much. And then, yeah, looking after yourself. I think that's you know, often when you, if you're doing a full run, you might only get two days off. Really plan for those two days off, but also try and have a bit of a schedule, like know what you're doing the next day so that you can go. Wait a minute, I've got an event in the morning I want to go to. Tonight's not the night to see that late night comedy show. Tonight's the night for bed. Like I just try and manage your your days like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:58

Do you think it helps to fire like right before your shells?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:03

If you if you can, it's like I think it's easier if you you're in a team or there's you know, if you're if you're solo and just a performer, you're probab you need to be in your venue probably. If you have someone that can stand outside and be like, this is happening in like 10 minutes. We brought in a lot of sales from doing that at the last, like that last push. There's also exit flyering. So flyer at the end of someone else's show. As long as you've got permission from that artist to like, hey, can I stand at the back when your audience are coming out? That's absolutely grand to do. Something that's good for flyering, especially if you're like nervous, is like find someone to flyer with and flyer each other's show. So, because talking about someone else's show is so much easier. Like, oh my god, you should definitely go see them. I saw the show last night. It was, you know, when it's talking about yourself, it can feel a bit odd. So sometimes actually finding a buddy and doing each other's marketing for you is kind of good. Any other questions for the room? Yeah, hiya.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:59

Hi, it's yeah, I still have to do our newsletters or something on our newsletter. Yeah, on the website. Um Instagram um our Instagram. Like is this channel that really hard to say nothing?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:49

Yeah. Any other questions for you?