Places at Edinburgh fringe say they expect a 25% drop in ticket sales this year compared to 2019 due to soaring accommodation costs that exclude visitors.
Eight of the biggest fringe venues – Assembly, Dance Base, Gilded Balloon, Just the Tonic, Pleasance, Summerhall, Underbelly and Zoo – said they expect to sell 1,486,746 tickets this year, up from 1,965,961 in 2019 .
Gathered as EdFest.com, the venues said falling sales posed a “major threat” to their financial viability.
A spokesperson for EdFest.com said: “There has been a real appetite and energy for shared, live experiences in Edinburgh over the past few weeks and the quality of the program has been incredible – yet the number expected number of tickets we have collectively sold is down 25% from 2019, which is a major threat to everyone involved with the festival.
Citing the cost of living crisis, the lingering effects of the pandemic and summer travel disruptions as “very real ongoing challenges for our industry,” the spokesperson said the biggest issue was the ” skyrocketing cost of accommodation in Edinburgh in August”, which cost our audiences and artists.
Accommodation costs have skyrocketed this year due to changes to Scottish law banning fixed term rentals, leading to more students staying in their accommodation over the summer months. Next year, restrictions on short-term rentals will also mean there will be fewer Airbnbs in the city.
Artists and punters who spoke to the Guardian said accommodation costs had doubled from 2019, leaving many to reconsider attending or performing at the festival.
The EdFest spokesperson added: “[It is] clear to anyone spending time in Edinburgh that there are fewer people in the city this year than in 2019.”
Venues are calling for public support to allow the festival to gradually return to normal over several years, including supporting those who have made losses, covering accommodation costs and launching a major marketing campaign.
William Burdett-Coutts, the artistic director of Assembly, estimated the venues lost £7million in revenue because ticket sales fell by a quarter, resulting in a “significant loss”.[es]”.
This has “really hurt” the companies that air the shows, with the result that some may not survive without fundraising or government support, he said. In a normal year, Burdett-Coutts said he would expect 10% of the companies he booked would not be able to cover their costs, but this year it would be more like 60%. .
He urged the Scottish Government to consider adjusting accommodation rules for the festival. This would include a waiver to the ban on fixed-term rentals for students – as is already applied to university-run accommodations – as well as a six-week window during which Airbnbs is not required to have a licence, alongside the introduction of a price cap.
Burdett-Coutts said the fringe and Edinburgh City Council needed to boost marketing to ensure ‘we get people’s enthusiasm and ability to spend’, adding that the fact that the fringe program n was launched in July was “a mistake”.
“It’s an Olympic-wide event that happens every year that we can’t afford to take for granted,” he said, noting that this year each visitor bought an average of five tickets. , when it would normally have eight, and the Assembly had had half the usual number of registered journalists.
Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said this year’s event was the first step in what would be “a long road to recovery and renewal”, and took place in “the one of the toughest summers on record”. .
She added: “We recognize the significant amount of work that is still required to support the long-term sustainability of this phenomenal festival. As we review and discuss all the learnings from this year, we will focus this autumn on planning for the Edinburgh 2023 fringe. Collectively we will work to advocate for greater support for those at the heart from the fringe – our artists.
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