misc feature
What’s wrong with the Edinburgh Festival?
In the lastest of our series of polemic, William Burdett-Coutts has his say.
It’s ThreeWeeks’ 13th year covering the Edinburgh Festival, so to erm, celebrate that fact we thought we’d dedicate some space to all things ‘wrong’. Or more to the point, to what is wrong with the Edinburgh Festival. We’ll be discussing this question in the ThreeWeeks Big Debate at the Roman Eagle Lodge, 2.30pm on Thursday 21 Aug so do come along and have your say. And to get us all fired up, the final published polemic is from William Burdett-Coutts, Fringe stalwart and Artistic Director of Assembly.
The biggest problem with the Edinburgh Festival is one of perception. It is the largest live event in the world, issuing several million tickets, but ask a member of the public outside Edinburgh and they would probably rank events like Proms, Glastonbury and Wimbledon ahead of us. In fact Edinburgh has an audience three or four times the size of these events combined.
You can ask: “If so many people are buying tickets what’s the problem?” But the reality is that Edinburgh faces enormous and growing competition and the life blood of any event like this is new audiences. There are now over six thousand festival events around Britain in the summer months, and the choice offered to the public is ever growing and ever competitive.
The Fringe is the greatest showcase of live performance in the world and it survives on the ticket-buying public. For every sold-out show there are hundreds playing to small houses. It can be argued that in this environment the law of the jungle prevails and those that get an audience survive and those that don’t die. If you push up the public interest obviously the survival rate improves and the talent and venues taking part can be nurtured in a more sustainable fashion.
In my view Edinburgh has a duty to sell itself better so that it remains a thriving event and is able to build its programming and infrastructure. Look at Wimbledon; every year you see the best tennis stars in the world taking part and the stands continually being improved. We need to be able to raise the bar and the money so that we can invite the best in the arts and entertainment world and develop the infrastructure.
Part of this is down to all the key organisations in Edinburgh working together. There are so many festivals taking place that there is no real coordinated planning. At the same time we have to play the media game better. Edinburgh gets a lot of attention in the press, but on balance I would argue that the coverage by the national press has diminished. What distinguishes Edinburgh from the other events I mentioned is that it is not consistently on television - the mass medium. Despite the fact television producers are trawling the event for new talent, the actual coverage of the Festival is pitiful. It is in the charter of the BBC to make major events in Britain available to the public on television but its support over the years has gone down and down.
It’s time to wave the flag. This is a magnificent event and we have to stop looking inwards and take the Festival out more to the world and make them realise what they are missing by not being here.
http://www.assemblyfestival.com
published: Aug-2008
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