Fringe trailers launched as campaign begins in earnest

A PERSONAL message recorded invited from Fringe chief executive Kath Mainland and an animated video of cartoon characters going “on parade” to the Fringe have been unveiled as the festival launches its annual marketing campaign months earlier than normal.

Tickets for dozens of shows have already gone on sale well ahead of the programme launch for the first time as the first two weekends of the Fringe prepare to go head-to-head with the Olympics.

The Fringe has created a trailer which features highlights of shows and footage of venues along with the likes of Alan Cumming, Richard E Grant and Brian Cox waxing lyrical about the festival.

The Fringe has urged its followers on Facebook and Twitter to circulate the minute-long cartoon, which allows the user to put head-shot pictures of them and their friends onto some of the animated characters.

A spokesman for the Fringe said: “The combination of the Year of Creative Scotland and the London Olympics has given us the opportunity to make a real step-change in the way the Fringe is promoted.

“The fact these campaigns are being launched now, with tickets for shows already on sale via our website, is completely different from a few years ago, when we didn’t really start the marketing of the festival until June.

“What we’ve found is that our younger audience, particularly from outside Scotland, is starting to make decisions on their plans for the summer at this time of year. We have to work now to capture that particular audience.”