FESTIVAL FEATURES | Free Festivals PHOTO © MARK DAWSON
Austentatious (top) and Luisa Omielan (bottom) i rst saw Edinburgh success with free shows; Mike Wozniak (right) performed at the Stand in 2013 but is at the Free Sisters this year (see review, page 48). PHOTO © RACHEL KING
Comedian Janey Godley, who has actively taken her show from paid venues to free ones, says on the matter: ‘It’s not that the Free Festival is open to one man and his dog with no show . . . you just can’t turn up being Betty the Fucking Bottlewasher then suddenly go “I’ve got a show I’ll put it on at the Free Fringe” because nobody cares and nobody checks the quality. That’s not true. There’s great quality control within the Free Festival, there’s just more artistic leeway.’ It’s that artistic leeway which inspires artists such as Godley to choose the free route, or even to supplement their paid shows with free performances, as comedy troupe Clever Peter did last year. They say they do so because it’s a ‘great platform to perform, which feels free, open and inclusive for all’.
In fact, it’s the notion of collective accessibility for performers and audiences alike that prompted Peter Buckley Hill to found the Free Fringe in 1996. His primary motivation, he says, was ‘so that artists had a choice, which was not a pay-to-play choice. So that people with something to say could pass the scrutiny, and if they did, come to Edinburgh and lose less money.’ His second was to connect more closely with the citizens of Edinburgh, and by offering free shows for all across the city, many residents would argue that this mission is somewhat accomplished. For Laughing Horse’s Alex Petty meanwhile, two of the greatest strengths of the Free Festival are its ‘accessibility of the arts to audiences’ and its ‘creative freedom’. It has also, it could be argued, changed the very face of the festival. As he says: ‘We have, along with other free show promoters, changed a lot about the Fringe. Indeed, the density of free shows has become a major selling point for the Fringe itself.’
My experience taught me to look more closely at the word free, for every organisation has different costs. That being said, it did buy me an insight into the complex inner workings of the festival, and as it turns out, that was a pretty good deal.
24 THE LIST FESTIVAL 13–20 Aug 2015
FREE FRINGE FACTS:
ABOUT PBH’S FREE FRINGE The Free Fringe was established in 1996 by comedian Peter Buckley Hill with a single show – his own. Last year, the PBH programme featured 440 shows and 7800 performances, so to say the festival has grown would be an understatement. Every year, the organisation publishes the Wee Blue Book – a detailed programme which lists performance details for Free Fringe shows throughout August. It is distributed by performers as part of the organisation’s community-centric ethos: to help each other out. Nobody gets paid, including Peter: PBH is run on a volunteer basis. In this spirit, performers are asked to help out in anyway they can, be it assisting with front of house duties for a show in the same venue, or by offering up skills such as graphic design. There is no fee for participating in the festival, and Fringe Society programme entry is not mandatory. Performers may make a voluntary contribution to the Free Fringe if they wish.
ABOUT THE LAUGHING HORSE FREE FESTIVAL The Free Festival was set up in 2004 by Laughing Horse comedy promoters Alex Petty and Kevin McCarron. Eleven years on, the Free Festival works with 19 venues featring 30 performance spaces, and has grown in scale signii cantly. When agreeing to perform with the Free Festival, performers also agree to pay an advertising and equipment contribution, which is £80 for runs of two nights or longer and £40 for single performance shows. Performers also agree to pay to be part of the Fringe programme, of which the costs are determined by the Fringe Society. In 2015, this was £393.60, with a discount available for early entry.