Exclusive:Brian Cox: The Fringe is in danger of 'imploding' without festivals 'unification'
Brian Cox said action was needed over soaring accommodation prices
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will "implode" if something is not done to tackle rising costs for audiences and performers, actor Brian Cox has warned.
The Succession star told The Scotsman there needed to be a “unification” between the festivals to lobby the authorities to take a stand on soaring accommodation prices.
He also said a more innovative approach to a shortage of temporary accommodation was needed, suggesting disused railways carriages could be repurposed and turned into a small artists’ village near the Meadows.
“If something is not done, it will implode,” said Cox, who is a patron of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. “That's what will happen. It'll implode because there is this disparity of wanting to go to Edinburgh and having to spend the money, a fortune, for your hotels that's that's becoming impossible.
“There are so many problems and they're not really being addressed in the sense that there's got to be a kind of unification between both the Fringe festival and the official festival [Edinburgh International Festival], and that's the only way it'll all come together. They're separate entities, but I think they have to be put together in order to strengthen the the whole point of the festivals.”
He said he had struggled to find a hotel room for less than £400 a night for his visit to this year’s event.
“I was lucky to find something for £400,” he said. “But these hotel prices will just go on and on getting higher. And eventually, a lot of these young people who come to perform at the Fringe will stop coming. They come up here and they lose more money than they make.
“It becomes a capitalist enterprise for the hotels, which I don't think the festival should be. It means only certain people can afford to come to Edinburgh, it's the people who can afford to stay in a £500 a night hotel, so there's a whole missing clientele and that worries me. It's ridiculous to pay £500 or £600 in some cases for one night.”
He said Fringe shows needed to “be nurtured”, but warned the Fringe was becoming too big and suggested a cap on the number of shows could need to be considered if the situation does not improve.
“The festivals need to come together in order to say, ‘well, people come here, so we've got to make sure that they're OK,’ he said. “And if the two festivals can can work in harmony with one another instead of being separate entities, I think that would help everything.”
He added: “I think they may have to put a cap on the amount of Fringe shows they can have. I don't want to stop that [growth] because that's what makes Edinburgh really unique more than anywhere else. You can see the most extraordinary things and that's why it is the festival - the major festival in the world - there’s nothing like it. But it needs taken care of and at the moment it's not.”
The Fringe Society and the EIF have been contacted for comment.
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