Free Fringe
The Free Fringe (also known as PBH's Free Fringe, after its founder, Peter Buckley Hill) is an organisation that promotes free shows during the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe arts festival in Scotland each August.[1] Unlike most event promoters at the Fringe, the Free Fringe does not charge performers for use of performance spaces, on the condition that they do not charge an entry fee into their shows. Audience members are, however, asked to make a donation at the end of a show.
Free Fringe venues are commonly independently run bars and nightclubs which create performance spaces in their premises for the duration of the Fringe. Predominantly the shows are comedy but the programme has expanded from its comedy roots to include theatre, science and rationalism, cabaret, spoken word, music and shows for children.
It is part of the Free Fringe ethos that no performer should pay anything towards the running of the organisation. The only cost to the performers is the charge made to be in the main Fringe programme. Most of the operating costs for the Free Fringe are covered through advertising in the Free Fringe brochure.
History
The Free Fringe was started in 1996 by comedian Peter Buckley Hill with the show "Peter Buckley Hill And Some Comedians". Buckley Hill had lost £4,000 as a performer at the 1994 Fringe.[1] The venues used by the Free Fringe have increased since 1996 from the original Footlights and Firkin venue to (in 2015) 529 free shows on 59 stages - over 9,260 performances.
From 2004, Buckley Hill worked with the team behind comedy promoters Laughing Horse on promoting Free Fringe shows. However, the partnership ended in 2006.[1] After the split, the two parties operated separate programmes under the "free" banner - Buckley Hill continuing to bill his programme the "Free Fringe", with the Laughing Horse adopting the name the Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
By 2009, PBH's Free Fringe had 176 shows at 19 venues, a growth of 50% in a year.
In 2014 John Kearns won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards main prize with his Free Fringe show, having previously won Best Newcomer in the previous year.
Awards
Since 1996 the Free Fringe has won several awards including...
- Tap Water Awards: Spirit of the Fringe 2006[2]
- Chortle Award for Innovation 2007[3]
- Chortle Award for Best Off—Stage Contribution 2007[3]
- Three Weeks: Editor's Choice Award
Additionally, in 2009, Peter Buckley Hill won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards [4] Panel Prize, in recognition of his work on the Free Fringe. He was also nominated for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality in 2008 and in the "Most Likely To Make A Million Quid" category at the 2014 Malcolm Hardee Awards, where organisers said he would have won the "Least Likely To Win A Million Quid" Award
The Free Fringe has been described as 'the true spirit of the Fringe' by comedian Sean Lock.
See also
- Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Free Festival
References
- 1 2 3 Brown, Angie (13 Aug 2009). "Thank the crunch 'it's all free'". BBC. Retrieved 20 Mar 2016.
- ↑ "Fringe 'Tap Water Award winners".
- 1 2 "Chortle Award winners".
- ↑ "Comedy Panel Award winners".
External links
- The Free Fringe – Official website of The Free Fringe
- The Man Who Wants to Set the Fringe Free!
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