The Fringe is 'like Disneyland where Mickey doesn't get paid'

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is "Disneyland where millions of tourists come and Mickey doesn’t get paid", a theatre producing company has claimed as it called for support for performers from the council's visitor levy.

Low Fat Productions, which performed musical Spraywatch: A Beautiful Rescue at this year's festival, said it made a £10,000 loss during this year’s festival, despite strong ticket sales and five star reviews.

The company sold 70 per cent of all tickets available, including eight sell-out shows - but said it had cost them £28,000 to put on the show, despite cutting corners and calling in favours from friends - with the vast majority of the money going to the venue, the Fringe Society and on marketing costs.

Hywel Evans, writer and director of the show, said: “[The Fringe] is Disneyland where millions of tourists come and Mickey doesn’t get paid. The council, the Fringe, the venues - each of them should consider what it would mean for the future of artists if a simple levy or pot was set up to share some of the money among registered shows, regardless of size.

“One per cent of that hotel tax could make a huge difference to enabling shows to perform. It would also make a huge difference to artists’ ability to feel valued, welcome, want to return, and afford to do things like buy a sandwich.”

Producer Wayne Ashall said: "After a few months, we realised that we couldn’t factor the financial outcome into our definition of success. We had entered a rigged game in which there was very little possibility that our show would ever have a chance of making a profit.”

He called for some of Edinburgh City Council’s visitor levy to be used to support individual performers. At a meeting last month, Edinburgh’s culture committee voted in favour of a 25 per cent increase for the festivals on the back of the levy. The proposal will now go before a full council meeting. However, those funds will be paid to the festivals organisations rather than individual artists.

The producers of musical Spraywatch said they had lost £10,000, despite good ticket sales. | Spraywatch

He said the company produced the musical in terms of costumes, sets or props, for less than £500 - while the five cast members received £300 each to cover rehearsal costs, with their accommodation and transport also paid for, but had worked their full-time jobs during the day around performances. A flat they rented for the full company added £5,000 to the bill.

He said: “Luckily, I view this investment as something bigger than the Fringe. We have launched Spraywatch onto a whole new platform. We are now speaking with venues across the UK about where to head next, and we have options to consider: how do we turn this success into something sustainable? Is there a route that enables that?

“What worries me more than anything is this: what about the shows that didn’t have someone prepared to make that loss? For every show like ours, I suspect there are another 20 that could have received 90+ stars from their first run, but they will never get the chance because they simply cannot afford it.”

He pointed to other industries, where he said the idea of working for “exposure” alone would “sound absurd”.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and Edinburgh City Council have been contacted for comment.