Fears for festival’s finances as Free Fringe fights for seats on the board

Four Free Fringe candidates are contesting the 20 August elections, backed by a voting block of about a third of those eligible to cast their ballots, after encouraging hundreds of supporters to take out the £10 Fringe society membership.

Rival candidates say the Free Fringe is welcome at the festival, but warn its minority agenda clashes with an organisation that relies on ticket sales and registration fees to exist.

The Fringe establishment, at the head of a festival said to generate tens of millions of pounds for the local economy, appears to be quailing at the prospect of the election of members who do not believe in charging for seats

“I really admire their guts. They’ve got a place on the Fringe and this is a balance for free commercialism,” said Tomek Borkowy, a 20-year Fringe veteran whose New Town Theatre includes some top-rated shows

But Mr Borkowy said: “I’ve only got a problem that they would be on the board of an organisation that depends on ticket sales for its income and they oppose ticket sales. Can you imagine Shell inviting Greenpeace on to its board of directors?”

He added: “If they have three or four members this will be the end of the Fringe as we know it.”

Free Fringe leader Peter Buckley-Hill, elected to the Fringe board earlier this year, has given The Scotsman details of his plan to cut “unjust and counter-productive” registration fees for Fringe programme from a standard £393 to a sliding scale with a minimum of £30. He has already put his ideas to the board, offering a complex formula for calculating the registration fee that he hopes could see single performers on short-run shows pay as little as £50-£100.

He has pursued the proposals with another Free Fringe supporter previously elected to the board, stand-up and satirist Kate Smurthwaite.

The four Free Fringe candidates named by Mr Buckley-Hill are performers Julian Constant, Rachel McCluskey and Nicola Bolsover – the Free Fringe’s volunteer co-ordinator – and lighting and AV designer Richard Hillier. They are competing with some major Fringe names and venue directors, including the Underbelly co-director, Charlie Wood.

Mr Constant said: “The Free Fringe represents 20 per cent of what’s going on here, that’s a huge chunk and we haven’t got a voice of equivalent size on the board.”

Mr Buckley-Hill said the Free Fringe’s manifesto asks its performers to join the society. Asked about critics’ claims, he said: “Let them worry. They deserve to worry. The Fringe ought to be run by its performers. The performers pay for the Fringe to happen. I am unapologetic about this.”

The Stand Comedy Club director Tommy Sheppard is also a candidate. He said: “I think the registration fee is good value for money. I wouldn’t support any lowering.

“It’s one of the smaller costs that you have even on the Free Fringe. Compared to accommodation, it’s a pittance. If you do lower it you do have to find the money somewhere else or you do have to cut the service.”

But he added: “I do think there is a lot of paranoia in some quarters about the Free Fringe onslaught and Peter trying to take over the board. It would take an incredible result for that to happen, even if every Free Fringe candidate was elected. The new constitution is meant to ensure there is a balance of views.”