Back to the ‘Burgh

I been to the Edinburgh Fringe as a performer over the years, my last time
was in 2018. I took a break from it in 2019 thinking I would go back the
following year, I mean what could possibly could happen in that time that would cause the world to shut down?

I headed back this years with my partner as a consumer. We all know the
accommodation is pricey. As a performer you take it on the chin as part of the
“experience” and hope to make it back on your shows.

As a consumer the best we could afford was two nights in a private room hostel
with shared bathrooms. The hostel was central and ok. But we were paying a lot
of money for that room on a Monday & Tuesday night, god knows what the
weekend would have cost us.

If we could afford it we would had stayed longer. Of course the longer we
stayed the more shows we could have seen and overall better for the economy of the Fringe.

In 2018 I remember how great the app was and heard it wasn’t happening this
year. I didn’t realise how much of a disaster not having the app would be. We
booked some shows we wanted to see in advance. We kept times open
for free shows or if something took our fancy.

At one stage we had five booklets. Two from the free groups and three from the paid venues. That doesn’t even cover all the venues that had show’s on. We tried to use the fringe website, but it’s about a useful as a five star review on your last day of the fringe.

We sadly had some bad experiences. We went to a paid show at a big venue. We
arrived twenty minutes before show time to get a good seat. We joined the que
and were near the top. Then more people just came and the que was all over the
place.

Then the show was delayed. We were not told this by staff. It was just
twenty minutes after the show was supposed to have started, so we figured out it was delayed.

They finally open the doors, it was a mad rush and ended up with a poor seat
despite being there early. Also our tickets where not checked, so we could have
gotten in for free.

Another show was delayed by an hour. People had to leave the que as they had
other shows to go to and there was no announcement or sign up explaining what
was going on. You could see it in the faces of the young staff that they were stressed and no idea what to do. They should have been a manger around to help and explain.

Also this was a paid show at a big venue so doesn’t seem crazy to ask for a
good customer experience.

On our last day we wanted to see as many shows as possible, sadly the internet on our phones was acting up. We could not book tickets online, so went to the box office, who could not be bothered to help. Also every show we wanted to see seem to not be on that day.

A lot of people had spent money on big
posters and in tiny writing there show was only on three days during the
fringe.

Without an app we were lost and could had booked more shows on the
Monday for Wednesday and had better sense of who was on and show times.

In the end we spent most of our final day in a bar playing video games.

I would definitely say my experience as a consumer wasn’t great and would not be
rushing back due to costs and poor management.

It’s been said that the Edinburgh Fringe is not viable for working class comedian to do and it’s going the same way for working class people just to be able to go to the shows.