Exclusive:Hundreds of cabins still available as FringeShip arrives in Leith Docks for week-long festival stay

The “FringeShip,” which has been berthed in Leith Docks, is less than a third full.

The venture has failed to take off despite the prospect of festival acts being brought on board to perform for exclusive performances and a free shuttle bus service being laid on to transport festivalgoers to and from the city centre.

The cost of staying on the 1300-capacity Ambassador cruise liner Ambition, which was previously used to help house refugees in Glasgow, has been slashed in a bid to attract last-minute business from festivalgoers.

However an American theatre magazine, which launched an international marketing campaign to promote the new venture more than a year ago, has admitted that it will definitely make a loss.

The cruise liner boasts a 500-seater theatre, a late-night cabaret lounge, a “wellness centre,” three bars, five restaurants, two swimming pools and an open-air lounge on its top deck.

However Playbill said it was planning to bring the FringeShip venture back to Leith Docks within the next two years if it can built up more interest in selling stays to American tourists.

Playbill reveals plans for the FringeShip – the first venture of its kind in the history of the festival – when it also announced an official partnership with the Fringe Society.

At the time, Playbill, which already runs Broadway-themed cruise trips around the world, said it was intending to support the festival “for years to come,” describing the Fringe as “a collision of creativity.”

Playbill said the FringeShip was intended to become an “annual event of high-end comfort, culture, and unforgettable performances” which would help tackle Edinburgh’s “accommodation crisis” during the festival.

Cabins on the FringeShip originally cost from £1250 for the full week or £179 for an overnight stay when they went on sale last summer.

However Playbill has been promoting a cut-price offer to performers and festivalgoers offering cabins from just £349 per person for a week on a shared basis or £580 per person for a week without sharing.

The discounted rates include breakfast, dinner and all on-board entertainment.

In an exclusive interview, Playbill president and chief executive Philip Birsch admitted mistakes had been made around who to target the FringeShip at.

We said: “We didn’t sell as many cabins as we have liked to.

We’ve got about 400 people staying at the moment, so it’s not done so well.

"There are very overnight successes in this world and I didn’t think this would be, but I thought we might able to attract 600 or 700.

"We were really focusing on selling week-long stays on the FringeShip, but I think that has maybe been too long.

“We thought we would be able to get more Americans to come and stay on the FringeShip for a week, but I don’t think we did a good enough job in marketing it to them.

"I think a lot of Americans are not yet tuned into the Fringe or a bit overwhelmed by it, and that has hurt our turn-out.

“But those who are here are so happy, because they are in such an extraordinary, inclusive environment. We’ve been able to upgrade everyone who is staying with us.”

The FringeShip, which will be berthed near the Royal Yacht Britannia and the Ocean Terminal shopping complex until 15 August, will play host to drag queen Ginger Johnson, West End star Rob Madge, magician Kevin Quantum and comedian Rhys Nicholson.

Guests will also be able to enjoy excerpts of Fringe shows like The Scot and the Showgirl, Tim Murray Is Witches, Sophie's Surprise 29th, Gwyneth Goes Skiing, I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical and Too Much of a Good Thing.

Mr Birsch: “We recently put on a special rate for people who are working at the Fringe, but there we still empty rooms here and everyone is welcome to stay with us.

"They will be taken great care of and they will see great shows. 

“We have Fringe talent performing at 10.30am every morning, people can go out all day and we have another show for them when they come back.

"We’ve given all our guests lists of shows to see and they are raring to go.”

Mr Birsch admitted mistakes had been made around who to promote the FringeShip to, but suggested it could make a comeback as early as 2026, the year before the festival’s 80th anniversary. He said: “We should have given over a portion of the ship to the presenters of Fringe shows, but we didn’t know what the demand was going to be like.

“I think we should have done more work to educate the American audience on the Fringe, what to see and how to do it better. Playbill is going to do that over the next year so.

"We assumed that Americans really know about the Fringe. They do, but they don’t. We made an investment for this year and we want to do it again, because we love the idea. We need to get people paying the full rates to make it profitable.

"We had hoped to break even this year and we have lost a little on this, but we are not crying in our beer over it.”

Ambition was berthed for six months in Glasgow’s King George V docks after thousands of Ukrainians arrived in Scotland under the Scottish Government’s “super sponsor” scheme.

Another cruise liner, Victoria, also become home to Ukrainian refugees on a separate site in Leith Docks. The vessels were used alongside thousands of hotel rooms as “welcome accommodation” for new arrivals from Ukraine.