Edinburgh Festival Fringe organisers want city's hotels to offer free room to artists

Organisers of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe want the city’s hotels to offer free and discounted hotel rooms to artists to help slash the soaring costs of appearing in shows at the event.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artistsEdinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artists
Edinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artists

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy also called for cafes, bars and restaurants to offer Fringe workers discounts rather than see the event as a “cash cow”.

She urged businesses to take an “altruistic” view of the event rather than see it as an excuse to hike up normal prices every August.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She said “inroads” were already being made with the hotel sector after they were asked to provide more help to the event.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artistsEdinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artists
Edinburgh Festival Fringe want city's hotels to offer free room to artists

Ms McCarthy, who was appointed in 2016, has previously warned that the event is at risk of becoming “unaffordable” for participants and called for a city-wide commitment to balance the “delicate eco-system which makes the Fringe happen each year.

Read More
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019: 21 must-see returning shows

The Fringe Society has secured more than 500 discounted university rooms for performers while several hundred private home owners have also agreed to host artists after an appeal earlier this year.

Ms McCarthy said the Fringe was under “huge pressure” to ensure it could continue to boast of being “the most accessible festival in the world” and had played its part by ensuring the cost of entry to its programme and box office commissions were kept as low as possible.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She urged any business which benefits from the Fringe, which is believed to generate more than £200 million for the economy, to consider putting something back into the event and suggested it was valued more overseas than it is in Edinburgh.

Ms McCarthy said: “We would absolutely love the hotel sector to come to the party in a big way. We would ask them for two things – an allocation of a number of free rooms for artists and performers and also have some rooms on a reduced rate.

“We’d love it if every single hotel in the city would consider allocating some rooms to artists and performers. It’s not just the top hotels in the city that benefit from the Fringe. We’ve been speaking to a lot of them and are beginning to make real inroads.

“If you look right across the landscape you see that prices for everything go up in August.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We would love to see all businesses in the city have special deals for the artists, performers, creatives and support workers who come to the Fringe to acknowledge that they are the driving force and the rocket fuel of this festival.

“We’d basically like to see businesses provide 30 per cent off to anyone who is wearing a Fringe lanyard.”

Ms McCarthy added: “This is an un-subsidised arts festival, where the performers and artists and creative entrepreneurs who set up the venues are the people who take the risks to make the Fringe happen.

“There is a huge pressure on the Fringe and everybody involved in it to continue to be the most accessible festival in the world and ensure it remains affordable. There is a real collective commitment to that.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Russell Imrie, spokesman for the Edinburgh Hotels Association, said: “The financial model of hotels is based on a full year’s performance, not one month’s trading in isolation.

“The Edinburgh tourism year is very seasonal from periods of high demand to periods of very low demand. Hotels need buoyant trading months to support months of the year when they trade at a financial loss.

“Pricing of all travel-related products is based on supply & demand. Prices are higher in periods of high demand and low in periods of low demand. Higher prices in August are balanced by very low prices in low season.”

Garry Clark, development manager for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “As always, pricing is guided by supply and demand but we know from last year’s experience that increased competition in the accommodation market has led some providers to lower the cost of rooms, even during the festival period.”