Fringe Content: Pre-Fringe Advice Opinion Column 1

Someone on Twitter asked for Fringe Advice for Artists who might not be selling many tickets. Here are some of my thoughts.

It’s entirely legitimate to think of the Edinburgh Fringe as a rapacious monster eating all of your money and talent, in which case, I would suggest not going. There are plenty of things about the fringe that are too expensive, unfair, exhausting. If you’re going because you think it’s going to be your big break, you’d better be already represented by one of the big agencies who is telling you specifically that, and even then, they’re lying. It’s a gamble. The house always wins, and in this instance, specifically, the landlords.

I go because I love the fringe. I think the boggling hugeness of all that art happening in one place at one time is a fantastical, thrilling flower of civilisation. It doesn’t need to be so expensive to be amazing, and if it weren’t expensive, I think it would be more of what I love.

That said, it IS expensive. So if you go, you have to be prepared for that.

If you’re one of the everyone-except-one-person who is going there and won’t win the award, that doesn’t make the fringe pointless. Without being all, “ask not what the fringe can do For you, but what YOU can…” here are some ways I like to think about the fringe. Because I love it.

The fringe is a conference/convention as much as anything else. It’s a month long MasterClass in your craft if you let it be. Each time you do it, you get an immersive course in the thing you love.

See it as a place to start projects, rather than the be-all-end-all of your work/year. Find people to collaborate with, befriend, be in it with. It’s a wild foreign country. Be curious and open.

You can get more listeners to a podcast than will ever read any review of yours. Build your own audience and blow off the approval of some twit who’s just got a free ticket. Alternatively, I quite like reading negative reviews of acts I LOVE, to remind me that reviewers are just some person with an opinion.

Do a big shop and have easy go-to meal makings in your pantry. You don’t need to be in ‘on tour’ mindset eating out every night, you’re making a home for a month. Pick your nights to go out and make them worthwhile. Don’t blitz yourself. You’re at work. These are your colleagues.

These are your colleagues. You will probably fall in love with one of them or start a vendetta. In an impossibly frantic pitch black scramble to the top of Arthur’s Seat to see the dawn, someone will seem way more amazing or annoying than physics should allow. They will still be your colleague after the fringe. Bear in mind you’re in a pressure cooker and your perspective on things is distorted. You wouldn’t recommend a movie you watched on a plane after a breakup? Don’t make big relationship decisions during the fringe. And when you do, as of course you will? Have fun and be safe. And remember they’ll still be your colleague in the morning.

The more insecure you feel the more generous you should be. The more secure you feel,also be generous. Cultivate a mindset of (cringe) abundance, rather than scarcity. It’s no fun being a mingey stingey sad bitter person. It doesn’t make you a cool dark arteest.

Helping helps. That’s science. For real. Pro-social spending is the best use of your money if what you want is happiness. Think the same way about your social capital.

See other people’s shows. Swap comps or ask if you can’t afford tickets. Most artists like to give comps to peers. I certainly do. Take notes. Be aware that to be seen taking notes makes you look like a cunt or a reviewer or both. (Do not take notes in the front row or on your phone. If you can’t do it unobtrusively, you can wait til you get home). Laugh. Out loud, fool.

I could go on for days, but that’s not a bad start!

Xx

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