There is an article on the PLAYBILL website that is called “here’s how to do the Edinburgh Festival fringe on a budget”. This article, of course, is a lovely piece of click bait that could be easily filed alongside articles which guide the reader to Santa’s holiday home or explain that trick that will make you a millionaire with two hours work a week.
I think it’s important to say that the Fringe isn’t supposed to be done on a budget. Artists are getting new mortgages on their houses to afford a good venue. It is a bit like Disneyland, with plenty of opportunities to spend money. In fact, I don’t think that they should be encouraging people to come to the Fringe on a budget. They ought to be encouraging millionaires, who will provide Edinburgh with the necessary money to do up its infrastructure. And price local people out of housing. And there is a much more appropriate article on Forbes recommending places for lunch. Because it is, after all, the world biggest marketplace of performance!
The article begins by encouraging the reader to get hold of the new app that the Fringe Society has released. It doesn’t really say why this would help anyone on a budget yet, but this is this year’s big revolutionary action by the Fringe Society. They have gone online – at least, they have gone online in the smart phone market. It is probably a good thing. It saves having to read the large programme that is issued every year, which is a bit like a phonebook and quite difficult to navigate.
Nevertheless, there are other fringe on a budget tips. The first tip that they give, using the app, is to look out for two-for-one offers. The interesting thing about this is that the app doesn’t advertise these straightaway, and you must find a show that you are interested in before finding out whether it is offering two-for-one tickets. It’s a good deal, but it seems odd to be shouting about how great the app is when it doesn’t actually give you the information you need on the opening page.
My suggestion for people who are in Edinburgh this August is to go to the big shed near Waverley station – it might be somewhere else now, but it is on the maps, I hope – which says HALF PRICE HUT in big letters. Then have a look at the board, and see what shows are there. It might not be technologically advanced, but it seems a little bit simpler, to be honest. And this does not discriminate against people who don’t have mates.
This isn’t really a very radical idea from me. I am just being grumpy. I’m slightly technophobic.
Another top tip from the article is to apply the ‘free’ filter. This will show you which shows do not cost any money to see. That seems like a good idea. There are various “free fringes” which do not have a price for tickets.
But I would also like to question what is meant by free in this case. There is a common misapprehension about the various free fringes that exist in Edinburgh. They are not free to watch, they are free to perform. The free fringes emerged because it had become prohibitively expensive for many companies and comedians to bring their work to Edinburgh. The free fringe represented a new model, in which the performer would not pay the costs of the venue – presumably the venue would recoup cash through bar sales – and this meant that there wasn’t the same pressure on the artist to remortgage their house just to pay the fees for venue hire.
Nevertheless, many people believe that free fringe means that you don’t have to pay if you watch the show. It is true, in the sense that there is a donation bucket at the end of the show, and it is possible to walk past the performer without dropping any pennies into it. However, it seems very odd to encourage people to go to shows because they are free, not to respond by paying an appropriate amount: this seems to not recognise something fundamental about the free fringe.
The free fringes were revolutionary, in a way that an app never could be. They allowed open access to an international festival. They gave back some of the DIY ethic that had existed in the earliest fringes and, despite the optimism of the article talking of £10 tickets and two-for-one offers, the free fringes do provide an economic alternative to overpriced celebrity-based snooze vests.
The article is a bit out of touch.
And that’s it. They end with a brief mention of their own recommended shows, and away you go. I think that I would like to offer my own advice for fringe on a budget.
Doing the fringe cheaply means optimising your performance and eating experience. There are lots of lovely pop-up places that appear across the city. They will eat up your budget. Try to find some of the places that are here all year but offer good food for a reasonable price. I am thinking of course of the Mosque Kitchen. I am thinking of the place around the corner – I just better look that one up – which offers falafel at a bargain price (The Nile Valley, website under construction).. I am thinking about Himalaya, round the back of some whole. If I think of anymore, I'll add them.
Also, Chizuru Te for sushi and good service, as long as you don't want to book a table at the same time as me.
The next thing might be a commercial secret, and I might be getting in trouble for saying this but…
There are ways of getting free tickets for shows. Some venues – but not all venues – allow companies to take tickets and offer them to people on the streets for free. There are many shows that do not get audiences, not because they are bad, but because there are so many shows in the Fringe. Sometimes the performers of these shows will go onto the street and offer tickets to people. I would not recommend asking the person giving you a flyer whether they have any free tickets, but if you get into a conversation with them, they might have something in their back pocket.
I don’t feel too bad about suggesting this, because it would be nice if people spoke to the poor performers who are out in rain or shine handing out its of unwanted cardboard. They probably haven’t had a proper conversation all day, and they are more than happy to talk about the work that they are making. Even if they don’t have any free tickets, there is a moment of human interaction happening. That’s the real spirit of the fringe, isn’t it?
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