The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the world's largest arts festival and last years festival spanned over 25 days and featured 53,232 performances of 3,398 shows in 300 venues around Edinburgh. It was established in 1947 and runs every year in August. There is no selection committee for the festival which means that anyone may participate with any type of performances. This can include performances from theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions and events. The festival is based all around Edinburgh and in some of the University buildings which are open for the festival. The role of the Fringe Society is solely to facilitate the festival and concentrate on the logistics of this huge event. A past administrator of the festival said that "as a direct result of the wishes of the participants, the Society has been set up to help the performers that come to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. It did not come together so that groups could be invited, or in some way artistically vetted. What was performed and how it was done was left entirely to each Fringe group."n
The venues come in many different forms, with the festival using all viable space that is available from regular theatres, like the Bedlam Theatre, functions rooms, churches and church halls, lecture theatres, including the George Square Theatre and conference centres. There are many diverse groups that operate these venues with some being commercial and others being non-profit. The decision on the performance locations are based on key factors such as cost, it's location within Edinburgh and its proximity to the main Fringe hubs around Edinburgh University, and the philosophy of the venue. For example what does the venue specialise in; amateur productions, school or college productions, semi-professional or wholly professional productions. According to the Fringe Society, there were 258 venues in 2011. The biggest venues during the festival are known as "The Big Four" and they include the Assembly, Gilded Balloon, The Pleasance and the Underbelly. They are not only the largest venue operators but the most long-standing. The Underbelly is a relatively new venue with only 15 years history. Each one operates a multi-room venue complex and often across multiple sites.
Although the festival is unjuried, there is a registration fee which in 2008 was £289.05. Some of the outdoor spaces also require registration thus some artists perform outside the specified venues of the Fringe. The aim is to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers which results in them not charging for spaces, and providing accommodation. This also applies to the audience so they "pay what they can" towards the performances.
One of the controversies that there is about the festival is the ticket prices, as in 2006 tickets prices reached to £20 for a one-hour show. The raising tickets prices could be down to increasing costs of hiring the large venues, theatre licences and the price of accommodation during the festival which is both expensive for the performers as well as the audience. In recent years, a couple of organisations have introduced free entry shows that collect donations at the end of each performance in order to fundraise for the festival. 22 shows were included in this category and these grew rapidly during 2011 with the numbers reaching over 600. Putting on a show in the Fringe festival with the venues that it offers can be very costly to performers due to the registrations fees, vehicle hire, accommodate and also the transport to Edinburgh. Recently a change has been in the process which allows the performers to negotiate with the bigger venues first-hand and the festival is becoming a wider opportunity for future careers for all performers. There is also the cost of the venues that needs to be taken into consideration when planning on entering the festival which start at £824 for a venue of up to 200 people and rising to £2472 for a venue of up to 5,000 people. If we were to take our Theatre In Education piece here to be performed these two of the most important aspects that we need to budget for.
Gofundme accounts allows the focus to be on that specific individual campaigns and this platform makes it easier to access and organise to gain funds. It can be accessed by computer or mobile and the company can start receiving donations from people all around the world who support the cause and the company. Once the account is set up and running, the company will get automatic updates and notifications when someone donates to the account. This makes it a lot more efficient and easy to follow which means that we can focus on other things and not focusing all of the attention on the fundraising. We can also add personal photos, information and updates about the company and the piece which we are taking to the festival and this may gain more interest in the piece if they can see how much work is being put in to the performance and who it is actually aimed at. With there being easy access to the website on mobile phones this means that it can be accessible for anyone who is on social media platforms which is the majority of the population. This then allows the fundraiser to reach a wide range of people and this means that the chance for more people to donate to us. Although fees are required to maintain the website at its current position and this is commonly used when companies use the website as a platform for their product which we would be doing if we used Gofundme to raise money for our trip. A 5% fee is given to the GoFundMe website for each donation given. Therefore, whatever is raised on the website is not fully rewarded to the company. Also, it takes time for fundraisers to receive their donations as it usually takes 5-7 business days to process and for the money to be deposited.
Another method of fundraising that could be use is sponsorship. Sponsorship is where a company receives financial support from a sponsor and this then provides a broad opportunity for the company to reach their goals. For sponsors, these goals are normally associated with their marketing aims and letting their name be known. For those being sponsored, normally goals may include things that need equipment or in our case funding for transport and accommodation. Companies often use sponsorship to be visible and to create a connection to other companies, event or organisation. This would help create appeal to our target audience and present a positive perception of our company and those who sponsored us. It also gives the sponsors a chance to promote themselves as well through supporting a product that links to its own target audience. The connection that is made between the two companies whether it's supporting the individual company, a product or an event has no definite way of benefiting both parties. Different methods of support are available depending on the needs of the company needing to be sponsored. This means that more time needs to be spent planning and evaluating what both parties want and need. Sponsorship needs a more in depth relationship between the two parties which means that more time may be needed talking through which leads to more time being needed in terms of discussions between the companies.
Donations are another form of funding that could be used in a situation where the company might not have enough budget to fund the trip themselves and by getting donations from helpful causes we are ensuring that companies end up receiving the necessary funds that they need to deliver the product and work towards providing the best performances and most importantly, in our case, getting the message to as many people as possible. Financial donations to a non-profit organisation often come with deductions in terms of tax depending on how much you can give to the company. The act of giving a company money to achieve what they want also puts a positive light on both the company receiving it and the person donating it. Although getting donations is very difficult to receive as you are open to anyone giving you their donations but if the audience have no information on your company or the product which you are funding then it is hard for them to decide whether they can donate to you or not.
The final way that could be possible for us to get funding if needed for the piece to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and grants are a sum of money given by a government or other organisation for a particular purpose. Grants allows a company to receive generous amounts of money and once you have obtained one grant then the company is more likely to receive others in the future. It is also a positive way to build a company's visibility and credibility. There is a lot of research that goes into a granting agency before writing the grant which can be very time-consuming. Competition is very fierce when it comes to grants and success rate can be very low. On average per day roughly 2,700 grant proposals are submitted but fewer than 200 will actually receive funding. Most grants are also short term so when they run out you have to repeat the process over again.
In either scenario that I have budgeted for we would be able to fund ourselves to go and so wouldn't have to look for further need for funding. To conclude, we would be able to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018 and take our Theatre In Education piece so that we could try and talk to as many people as possible and talk about the communication between teenage boys and how we can help elevate that.
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