So the story rolls on and it seems we are not going to have posters all over town, we wont be inundated with Dubrovnik style crowds, and key workers will be able to get to their work this August.
Deadbeat first started commenting on the festival nearly 40 years ago and back then it was so exciting. We were all loving the pop up atmosphere and it seemed we were an oasis in the meltdown of Thatcher's experimental economy, or how to treble unemployment in as many years nightmare. Yes from 1979 to 1982 we managed to go from 1m to 3m unemployed, "just like that", as Tommy Cooper said.
Its so ironic with the mad doctor Johnson experiment, that we are now paying people to be unemployed rather than let the free market dictate, how the Tories have changed in 40 years. They now believe that keeping people employed and paying taxes is preferable to putting them out of work, yes, I read that three or four times.
So what absolutely confuses me is over the years as the maxim you cant have enough of a good thing proves our infrastructure cant cope with the various festivals and fringe we hear the expression about bail outs.
Never have any of these voices ever assisted the performers, or considered the employees or the city in the past. Its a bit glib but the anti social behaviour associated with August, which Edinburgh citizens pick up the tab for, which starts with the odd discarded flyer wafting in the meadows air and the concludes with an environmental disgrace as the full carbon emissions are quietly ignored.
I met the Director /Producer of a Canadian show last year where she was the only person associated with the show who came over to Edinburgh. The 'virtual show' was a '2020 hindsight' precursor to this year's festival and the more I think about it the more I love it. It was highlighting CO2 emissions and therefore used people who were already in Edinburgh to read and ad lib from various media. The content of the show changed every night with the performers and conceptually was very clever, if not always hitting the mark the Company had aimed for. I think it would've been much better this year for the 2019 experience.
Which leads me back to my experience of the Fringe in particular and where a lot of it goes wrong. Whether its the 80's, 90's or early 2000's prices just seem to defy the inflationary model and the costs for performers went through the roof, the ticket buyers paying £5 seemed a milestone, then suddenly in the blink of an eye it went to £10, then more recently £20+ from this buyer's seat seemed a bit bizarre.
If you view a basket of goods like price of a bottle of Guinness in 1980 38p, price for a draught pint now £3.50- £4.00. I drank on the Southside, same pubs, different owners, but 10 times the price.
We've all noticed that entertainment prices have rocketed. IF you want to see your mates bands with a disco, expect to pay £10, back in the day it might have been £3 to see the Undertones, but you'll get change off £30 if you want to see them now, so less than 10 times!
So why when we used to go to Potterrow for a drink in the Fringe bar in 2019 do we find the prices 20 times.
Why do all the pop ups charge so much, is it because their pitch costs that much?
How much has a cinema ticket gone up by, how much has a season ticket at Easter Road or Tynecastle gone up by?
There are a lot of questions to be asked and 2020 offers us the chance to do exactly that.
The point of the festival used to be to give performers a stage, writers and production crew experience and visitors an opportunity to support their efforts and perhaps to see some original and exciting new material, performances, hear phrases that would resonate for years to come.
"....If you can say, clearly enough to make it pay......", 40 years on now sounds quite prophetic, although I'm sure this wasn't the first time these words had been uttered....
So when we look at how the Festivals have evolved we realise that we bring in a lot of money into the city and it leaves immediately. We bring rigs and gear from across the country as just like PPE, you'll pay 4 times the normal cost for a microphone stand in Edinburgh during August, never mind the cost of water, beer, gin and a cup of herbal tea.
If shortages such as that exist within what should be a first world economy, then clearly we are operating like a third world one.
We bring specialist labour in too, to build the pop ups and provide the lighting rigs and anyone involved in staging will be able to provide another 20 pages of stuff.
What really frustrated me last year was I'd been on a premises fire inspection the day before I saw a show in the Pleasance. I couldn't understand why health and safety seemed to go out the window for the month of August. It could be that many of the rules dont apply to pop ups and only to permanent structures, but the wee nooks and crannies of the best venues are really dangerous. I'm not suggesting to any wannabee firestarter that they should go and get their career off to a roaring start but flyers with old wooden floors work well on November 5th!
I've gone off piste as usual but what we need to do is strike the balance like Dubrovnik. We dont want to kill the golden goose and this year allows us to build an infrastructure that works. Pop ups that are extensions of what we do well are superb, those that are maximising revenue dont belong and those that are dangerous, ie queuing on a main road......
Thankfully the staff at the A & E will tell you the festival brings a better class of drunken injury but its a hot spot for these frontline workers who have had it hard for a long time, please listen to them when they advise how events should be run.
My interest in this is that we arrive at a better solution and not that we talk about businesses that are under pressure owing to the collapse of the "FREE MONEY" that has poured into Edinburgh for so long. Those of us who have a day out usually come back £200 poorer for it but having had a great time. I think its right the taxi drivers get a wee boost but what's the point as its a marketing coup for private hire, while the uber-parent snatches 25% off the top pays no tax and sneaks it out of the country never mind Edinburgh.
Lots of people fund shows with the crowdfunding, ticket buying and large donations. THey'd be disgusted to know that most of the money goes on accomodation and over priced venue hire. Especially when you have to hire the venue's equipment and staff as an additional extra.
I must complete this
No comments:
Post a Comment