Is flyering still the way for performers to win audiences at the Fringe amid environmental concerns?

After standing near his venue, Patter House, for three days, in which time he only managed to hand out two flyers, he bought a whiteboard on which he penned the words: “Flyering is terrifying”. Over ten times more people picked up a leaflet from the box he placed next to the whiteboard than he had managed to market to the previous day.

“I had spent three days wandering with my flyers, not approaching human beings.” says Mr Forward, who has two TV specials in Canada and four sell-out shows waiting for him when he returns home. “I finally gave out two over three days. It is so stressful, some people have that gear and some don’t.

“It was terrifying for me and I’d watch other people dressed up as bears and toilets and they didn’t seem to care. So it became a battle of watching ticket sales and knowing that it helps and finding a way to put myself out there.

“What is terrifying is you don’t know who’s looking for a show and who’s not, who lives here and maybe thinks August is the worst month of their lives trying to get to work.”

Handing out flyers to would-be audience members is a right of passage for most Fringe performers and their friends and family - and often a serious irritation for locals trying to go about their normal business in the Old Town.

Hundreds of thousands of flyers are handed out by performers during the course of the Fringe, with the vast majority going straight into waste or recycling bins.

Environmental campaigners have also raised questions over the sustainability of the practice, with some artists this year opting to share flyers by posting two shows on one piece of paper, or handing out business card-sized adverts instead of the standard A5 size in a bid to reduce waste.

Barry Fisher, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, wants promoters and performers to switch to “alternative marketing approaches” and for organisers including venues to provide better sustainability best practice guidance to acts.

However, he says in the meantime, more needs to be done to encourage the recycling of flyers, rather than dumping them in general waste bins.

He says: “What many of us don’t realise is that our unsustainable consumption of ‘throw-away’ items is one of the primary drivers of the global climate and nature crises and Scotland’s litter emergency. The simple flyer handed out to promote a show may not be the most damaging single-use item out there, but it is symbolic of the attitudes and excuses so many of us have and make.

“For those living and working in Edinburgh the paper flyer blowing about the streets during August is something that just is. But, with 73 per cent of people agreeing that litter damages the reputation of their area for tourists, it is ironic that Scotland’s most famous Fringe event generates so much paper waste – much of which isn’t recycled and can become litter.”

Mr Fisher points to a previous trial carried out by the organisation in the Grassmarket which saw 21 bags of leaflets weighing 315kg collected in one flyer recycle bin in 22 days.

He adds: “Scale this up across Edinburgh and the potential to reduce harm to our environment and communities, reduce the cost of cleaning up and landfilling, a recyclable item, and supporting a circular economy becomes clear.”

Becky Kenton-Lake, coalition manager at Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, backs calls to move away from the use of disposable items.

She says: "Stronger regulations are needed to drive the shift away from single-use, disposable items to cleaner, greener options and to end our throwaway culture.”

While Edinburgh City Council has put on an extra 10-strong team to clean busy streets during the festival and placed extra litter bins around festival hotspots such as Cockburn Street, High Street and the Mound, no recycling measures are in place.

The Edinburgh Festival City action plan on environmental issues includes the introduction of digital ticketing and offering online shows to reduce the number of people travelling.

Meanwhile, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society runs a swap shop for set, props and costume at the end of the festival and offers a free flyer recycling service.

A spokesperson says: “We've significantly reduced the programme print quantity since 2019, and encourage artists to consider an environmentally conscious approach to flyering - whether by ensuring they're only giving a flyer to an audience member who they've had an engaged interaction with; by making use of QR codes or the new Fringe app; or taking advantage of our digital flyering offer on our edfringe Instagram each Friday.”

Gillian Garrity, co founder of Scottish theatre production company Raw Material, which is this year performing Windblown at the Queen’s Hall, says she does not use flyers or leaflets for any Fringe shows, instead opting for large posters.

“It really is an environmental issue for me,” she says. “We decided a long time ago that social media was a more interesting way to connect with people. Our marketing manager once asked me if I'd ever been to see a show after getting a flyer and I realised I hadn't.”

She said in previous roles working in the arts in Scotland she had used flyers to promote shows, but feels times have changed.

"Flyering used to be the way you found out about shows, but I don't feel it’s the way now,” she says. “Environmentally, you would hope there would be a shift. I see venues often at the end of the Fringe with boxes of flyers piled up and you just know they're going to go straight in the bin."

Love the arts? Us too - subscribe now to our dedicated newsletter

At the Brighton Fringe Festival, flyering is hugely restricted, with performers required under council legislation to obtain a licence and flyer only in specific areas.

Paul Levy, founder and editor of website Fringereview, which covers Fringe festivals across the country, says the high level of flyering is specific to the Edinburgh Fringe.

“it's interesting that flyering is still so much a thing at the Fringe, given the whole thing about sustainability,” he says. “The bins are absolutely full. It still seems to be the main currency of communication here.

“Down in Brighton, even though there are about 800 shows, you will not walk up a street and be guaranteed to get flyers like you will in Edinburgh. It’s become as much of an institution in Edinburgh, probably, as the shows are.

“If you flyer your show, you often do get a bigger audience that day, but you have to really know how to do it. If you don’t, you might as well just throw your flyers away in a recycling bin.”

Councillor Stephen Jenkinson, transport and environment convener at Edinburgh City Council, says the council encourages people to recycle flyers.

He says: “Flyers are a traditional part of the Fringe experience. They help artists to find new audiences, but it’s undeniable that all this paper use has an environmental impact. That’s why Edinburgh’s festivals have been encouraging less paper and greater use of digital tools, for everything from e-ticketing to QR codes on posters – as part of their collective action plan on climate change.”

While flyering can be a professional business - there are agencies offering the service charging up to £20 an hour to do the job - there are still reports of people being exploited.

One Fringe producer told Scotland on Sunday their street team had come across a young woman with little English who said she had been told by a promoter that she would get 10 free tickets to shows if she worked for 40 hours unpaid - with the promise of a £100 bonus if she worked for as much as 50 hours.

Although this particular claim is unverified - the producer’s flyering team has not managed to track down the woman or her employer after the initial meeting, despite plans to report the incident to police - there are fears that some temporary workers are being exploited.

Mr Levy says the industry has improved in recent years, but warns there are still some gaps.

“At the worst end, it's exploitative,” he says. “And at the best end, it's a proper industry, and it's properly paid. The best flyerers, you can't get hold of them because they are literally full up.”

JD Henshaw, who runs Dundee Fringe and previously worked at the Edinburgh Fringe, says online marketing, such as social media, is losing impact, returning the focus to in-person and physical marketing including flyering.

He says: “We don’t find online marketing as good as it was. People’s engagement has shifted as they move down a track of distrust of social media platforms. There's truth to flyers, they're real, they're tangible, but there’s also that personal element. When you’re flyering, you need to make people like you, there needs to be more to it than just that there’s a show on.”

He says alternative approaches to traditional flyering is being considered at other festivals, such as “zines”, which would create a community around shows.

“We're finding ourselves talking about alternative approaches,” he says. "We've considered the idea of creating zines at other Fringe festivals, which includes the shows in there but also has chat and information, not just the title of the show and the time. It's community-built so people have a sense of tribe and belonging. But that's always going to be difficult in a place like Edinburgh because everything is so temporary.”

However, hypnotist Fraser Penman, whose show Penman the Imaginator - You is also on at Gilded Balloon for the full Fringe run, says flyering is vital for him to generate ticket sales.

He hands out flyers for six hours every day before his show, with the help of his friend and his father.

“We can start off the day with 11 ticket sales in the morning and have 170 by the show at night, just from flyering and speaking to people,” he says. “It’s absolutely key for me to get my audience.”

Major venues also say they believe the practice remains a key marketing tool.

A spokesperson for Assembly says: “Flyering is still an integral part of the Fringe that we encourage all artists to engage in. It gives audiences face to face time with artists and street team who have seen the shows, and can talk about them in an informed and passionate manner.

“Lots of people come to the Fringe expecting to be flyered, and will choose shows on the basis of a good experience on the street.”

Anthony Alderson, director of The Pleasance, says he believes flyering is still “an absolutely valuable tool, enabling acts to get out there and talk to potential audiences about their own shows”.

He says: “Word of mouth and creating a buzz is so vital at the Fringe - and what better way to achieve that than by getting out there.”