Blow for Fringe as biggest venue ruled out by repair work

Published on Thursday 28 April 2011 18:10

THE biggest venue at last year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been ruled out of this year's programme due to repairs to a historic organ.

Edinburgh University's 1,000-seater McEwan Hall played host to dozens of sellout shows last year, including Five Guys Named Moe, Flawless and Danny Bhoy.

Funnyman John Bishop became the biggest selling artist in the history of the Fringe, after selling 29,000 seats on his own at the venue.

The hall, used for the first time for the festival in 2010, was widely credited with the whole Fringe selling more tickets than ever before last year, notching up 1.82 million sales.

However, promoters have admitted they have been banned from using the venue due to months of repair work.

Underbelly, which already operates the "Udderbelly" venue in the area, has only been able to add two smaller venues after the prospect of reopening the hall for the festival was ruled out.

The revamp has also meant the Edinburgh International Television Festival is unable to stage its prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at its normal venue. Organisers admitted that they were still trying to find an alternative venue for the event.

The Fringe has already suffered a major blow for this summer after city council officials insisted on pressing ahead with a controversial refurbishment of the Assembly Rooms, on George Street, even though the project will rule it out of this year's Fringe.

Assembly Theatre, which ran the venue for the previous 30 years, has already announced plans to relocate close to the McEwan Hall, at George Square Gardens, which was previously home to the Spiegelgarden venue.

The McEwan Hall's deployment for the Fringe was unveiled in a blaze of publicity by Underbelly last year, which started selling tickets months before the official Fringe programme in a bid to establish the new venue.

Extra performances were added for most shows there, with Bishop notching up 29 different performances during his month-long run.

The venue, famously named after William McEwan, the 19th century brewing magnate who paid for the university's graduation hall, dates back to 1897 and is regularly used for lectures, concerts and exams.

Charlie Wood, director of Underbelly, said: "We've known for some time now that there was an issue and that this work on the organ would have to be done this year.

"We had hoped the venue might have been able to reopen for the festival, but that hasn't been possible. It is a shame as it a great venue.

"It worked very well last year. We would definitely be interested in using it again and we think that it should be available next year."The university said work had already begun on refurbishing the organ, which would continue until next year, with only graduation ceremonies going ahead as normal.

A spokeswoman for the university said: "The McEwan Hall will not be available as a festival venue this year because of scheduled repair work on the McEwan Hall organ.

"The university remains committed to its role as one of the main providers of festival venues, and we are providing a range of other venues as normal."