...starting with the fact that it's actual name is, in fact, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and not the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, like I thought...
I'd like to start out by saying how grateful and lucky I feel to have been able to participate in this year's festival. I have never learned so much from one artistic experience in my life, but it was also the most difficult. It has truly been a dream of mine for a very long time, and I didn't think it was something that would realistically happen. This opportunity was quite serendipidious, as the writer of the play we took to the Fringe was written by a local writer in Paris who needed actors to join her on this adventure. This is important for later when I share about what I learned and what I would do differently, as the venue and dates were organized before Spin Cycle (the company I am apart of) came on board.
So, what is the Fringe Festival, and what's so special about it?
Glad you asked! It's one of, if not the, biggest theatre festivals on the entire planet. It started out as a true Fringe festival, going up against the Edinburgh International Festival that was held at the same time. But, over the years, the Fringe became more popular and basically overtook the other festival. This year alone, there were over 3,000 different shows to choose from - circus acts, one-person shows, stand up comedy, dance shows, theatre, and anything and everything in between. Shows are also even further divided between Free Fringe (meaning you pay what you want at the end) and... regular Fringe. There's truly something for everyone here!
How much did it cost? Was it worth it?
A lot. And I couldn't give you an exact number, but I can give a rough cost estimate:
~1,000£ for housing
~350£ for transportation (for those who flew)
~350£ between purchasing groceries and buying food and drinks out
Everyone spent different amounts on other shows/souvenirs/toiletries/etc. (mine was probably higher than everyone else's because I LOVE Boots and Superdrug and had to get my fix!)
Venue - I don't know the exact cost (and will update it when I do), but the venue was around 3,000£, if I'm not mistaken
~500£ for marketing and promotional materials (pro tip: order fliers from https://www.bizay.fr), which included posters around Edinburgh, fliers, and t-shirts
It was worth it to me to experience the Fringe and have the opportunity to see so many excellent shows and meet so many incredible people!
Where did we stay?
We stayed at Queen Margaret Univeristy in Musselburgh, which is a 6 train ride outside of the city. This university, and others in the city, offer affordable housing options for Fringe performers during the festival. The positivies of staying here: friendly staff, you have your own bathroom/space, free events for performers to network that had free food and drinks, free weekly yoga classes, and a space outside of the city to disconnect from the overstimulating atmosphere of the festival. The negatives: trains weren't every hour, dated amenities, it was outside the city, and the bed was incredibly uncomfortable. I would still recommend this to anyone who wants to come to the Fringe - but try and get your whole crew in the same suite of rooms, to avoid sharing with strangers.
What did we eat?
Most people probably won't find this interesting, but I'll leave it here anyways. We did some batch cooking in the accomodation and occasionally had family-style meals. We usually ate breakfast in the housing, brought our lunch or dinner with us (sandwiches, chips, and fruit usually) and normally had one meal out per day. Ice packs can only keep things cold for so long! To keep things cheap, we also got lots of meal deals from grocery stores, loyalty cards from coffee shops, and took advantage of the events with free food from our accommodation and Fringe Central!
A few restaurants I/we loved: El Jefe's, City Restaurant, Biblo's, Korean Munchies, Tempting Tatties, Bread Meats Bread.
How did we get around the city?
We all either had a monthly bus pas or train pass. Because we were staying outside of the city and for the duration of the Fringe, it made more sense to get a monthly pass. You can also buy single or return tickets from the ScotRail app on your phone. The train was only a few minutes to get into the city, versus 45 minutes on the bus (and as someone with motion sickness, that sounded like hell on earth to me!). However, the amount of trains going back and forth was much more limited than buses, and the bus pass is cheaper, so keep that in mind. It was 80-some pounds to get the train pass for the month that went between Musselburgh and Edinburgh Waverly. We also had to get some passport pictures for the pass, so add on another 10£ for those. Tip: go get those pictures first, or bring one with you when going to get your train passes. We also occasionally split an Uber to get back home when we didn't feel like waiting over an hour for the next train, and it was never more than a few pounds per person.
My biggest takeaways:
I'm so happy I was able to participate in Ed Fringe - there's truly nothing like it. While there were some days where I was so exhausted, I learned to not beat myself up about not being able to do everything I wanted to at the festival and take care of myself so that I could give my best performance. There's over 3,000 shows at the festival - it is not only unrealistic, but also impossible to see every show that catches your eye! I had some days where I saw four shows, but I found that made me more burnt out, so I tried to stick to seeing at least one show per day after the first week, so I could still feel that I was getting the most out of the festival.
What would I do differently?
If I could do things over, here are the main things I would change:
try to find student housing within the city
learn to set aside time for myself from the very beginning to not get burnt out, instead of trying to be in a rush to get everything done/see everything
stay for a maximum of two weeks
review some shows while I was there (more about this later)
be more aggressive about fundraising
attend more press/networking events
build more relationships with other performers
do a lot more research before going and connect with as many people as possible to build a network before arriving
Let's talk about reviews...
One of the other big reasons to go to the Fringe is to get good reviews for your show so you can use it for future promotion or to sell your show. Unfortunately, we never got more than three stars from official Fringe review outlets, but we did have an overwhelming amount of nice audience reviews! As much as we would have liked all our reviews to have been four stars or more, something we learned is that a highly-rated show is not necessarily getting more butts in seats. And to be honest, something that may be loved by critics may not be something loved by the audience. I saw excellent shows that had rave reviews, but could never pack more than half their venue - but this wasn't always true. It's part of the experience that you have to hustle to get your audience. So, are reviews really all that important? From my perspective, I would say that it depends. For me, just because a critic enjoyed the show didn't mean I wanted to go see it. However, if someone told me about a show and what they liked about it, I was a lot more likely to go and see it. This is also how we ended up getting a lot of people at our show, through word of mouth.
Would I go back and do the Fringe again?
All I can say right now is: maybe? I had an amazing time and learned so much from my experience at the Fringe, but it was a lot of money out of pocket and my entire month of August, which is when I usually go back to the US to see my family. As I'm building my own family, it is definitely not realistic to go back anytime soon, but if I did go back, I would only do a short run and make sure I had the financial aspect (mostly) covered before going. I know not many people get their projects produced to go to the Fringe, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't keep it as a goal!
Tips I learned from previous festival performers:
I learned from a lovely woman at the box office at our venue that a good tip for Fringe performers or people planning to come and scope out the Festival for a future performance should come as press. I don't know all the specifics of how exactly to do this, but I did learn that you can become a voluntary reviewer for the website BroadwayBaby.com. There were also plenty of people with normal blogs that reviewed shows that were able to get press badges - which allows you to see all the shows for free. You can use this opportunity to meet reviewers and build relationships with them, see what gets buzz at the festival, and also see a ton of shows. The building relationships with reviewers is also helpful when you'd bring your own show to the Fringe.
Flyering
Or is it fliering? No matter the correct way to phrase it, this is something you're going to have to do if you want to get butts in seats for your show, unless you're already some huge star. There are people who are paid to pass out fliers, but most companies don't have a budget for something like that, so you're usually on your own. We found that getting some comp tickets for each show and offering one to a couple or two to a large group was a good way to get more people to purchase tickets. We would also flyer right outside the venue, right before the show in our costumes to get more attention. It's also good to pass out fliers when people are standing in line before a show that is similar to yours. You can also try exit flyering, but we had more success talking to people while they were waiting to go in. You should dedicate around 2 hours to passing out fliers per day if you're more than one person in your company.
Random tips
Some random things I learned along the way during my time at Fringe:
If you have a question about Fringe, your venue, or anything at all - reach out to the venue or the Fringe Central team!!! They are there to help you! We ran into an issue about not understanding where we could store our props for our show - emails that weren't super explanatory led us to think we wouldn't have room for everything we were bringing, which wasn't the case at all, we just needed more clarification.
...speaking of props, try to limit the amount of stuff you bring. Our show was very prop-heavy and we had authentic, handmade costumes for each of us, so that meant a lot of bulk to bring to the festival itself and to the venue every day. There were things we left at the venue, of course, but we also lugged a suitcase to and from the city from our housing every day and left it at a left luggage spot near the venue.
If you book a venue, or are thinking of booking a particular venue, find companies that performed there in the past and get their thoughts on the space. Our show was basically in a conference room and not built for performance. We were lucky in the fact that that worked for our type of show, but not every show would be good in that venue.
If you have a tech-heavy show, like we did, either bring your own technician or email the venue to find out what system they use for lighting and sound cues and try and program that on your own before coming. We really got screwed with this, because we didn't finish our tech during the scheduled time due to many cues and an inexperienced programmer. This caused our first night to be a bit of a technical disaster.
Even people with big names aren't guarenteed to fill a room. You need to be comfortable promoting yourself through networking events, press days, passing out fliers, etc. if you want to get people in to see your show. This festival is really what you make it, and it's a lot of work and you need to stay motivated.
Try to be realistic when booking your venue. You will be one show up against hundreds of others just like it, and three thousand other shows at the festival, just to put things in perspective. I talked to countless people who told me they were consistently playing for 5-10 people in a 60 person venue. You need to ask yourself if you'd rather have a smaller venue that you could get close to capacity, or be okay performing for small crowds. Depending on the type of show, you may risk having to cancel if ticket sales are too low (heard of this happening multiple times for shows involving crowd work/hypnotism).
Go to Fringe Central! They are there to help and they will answer all your questions. There's resources and free events being held there to help you make the most of your time at the Fringe.
Bring a winter hat and scarf with you! I had to buy a knit hat and almost had to buy gloves. I was freezing many of the days I was there!
Thank you for reading!
Elly
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