Richard Herring, a comedian, has stated that he will not perform at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival due to fears that rising costs are pricing out audiences and artists.
He stated that due to the high cost of housing in the city,
“only moderately wealthy people can go.”
“It should be for everyone, because it felt like 1987 when I first visited,” Herring said on a blog.
The Edinburgh City Council and the Fringe have been requested to comment.
Last year’s decline in ticket sales for some Edinburgh Fringe acts was attributed to housing expenses, train strikes, and the cost of living.
Some performers camped in tents or campervans since they were unable to afford lodging in the city.
In the 1990s, Herring and his comic sidekick Stewart Lee achieved prominence. They met at Oxford University prior to creating the legendary BBC sketch show Fist of Fun.
Presently, Herring runs the popular podcast RHLSTP, in which he interviews comedians and celebrities.
According to him, he has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 27 times over the past 35 years.
However, in a subsequent blog post, he stated that despite being delighted with his performance, he found last year’s Fringe to be “very distressing and stressful.”
He explained why he eventually chose not to come to Edinburgh this summer for the sake of his mental health, but he also discussed the festival as a whole.
He stated that accommodation costs were too expensive and that performers with smaller crowds were likely to incur debts in the thousands of pounds.
Herring stated, “It just felt wrong, and I didn’t like the mood or the notion that the 18-year-old me would not have been able to attend under these conditions or would have had to do it under conditions even more miserable than sleeping on the floor of a Masonic Temple.”
Herring lauded the Fringe for helping him develop his work, advance his career, meet new connections, and find collaborators.
He stated that he still considers it the best festival in the world and that it was “responsible for so much good in my life.”
However, he adds,
“The ability to return each year to grow and explore has been crucial to the minimal success I have achieved.”
If we had a financial loss, it was conceivable that a job from the Fringe would enable us to repay some or all of the loan.
“Today, I don’t believe it’s conceivable for anyone without wealthy parents or their own means to return year after year, and the rise in the number of performances makes the likelihood of it directly leading to more work minimal.”
He demanded action from the Edinburgh City Council and Edinburgh Fringe organizers.
Herring is not the only comedian to bring up some of the festival’s issues.
Frankie Boyle, another Fringe veteran, describes the festival as “kind of an aristocratic festival” in The Fringe, Fame and Me.
“I always consider the Edinburgh Festival to be a fairly middle-class event, as I believe many Scots do as well. But even middle class doesn’t quite capture it.
“Many of these people, your typical fringe performers, will have attended public school and Oxbridge.
“If you’ve done that and gotten your own TV show or whatever, you’re not in the midst of the typical British person’s experience; you’re part of an elite.”
In an effort to alleviate the housing crunch, new regulations limiting the number of Airbnb-style rentals in the city just went into effect.
Landlords need the approval to rent out a property that is not their primary residence for a short period of time.
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