Red tape and rising costs 'killing' Fringe, says venue boss

Anthony Alderson, director of the Pleasance venues, which have operated at the Fringe for more than 40 years, said the potential departure of the Edinburgh TV Festival from the city was the "canary in the coal mine" for the demise of the festivals and warned Edinburgh would "miss it when it's gone".

He said licensing and planning costs for the Pleasance had rocketed from around £4,000 to £60,000 due to new regulations brought in two years ago which require temporary structures in place for more than 28 days to apply for full planning permission.

Meanwhile, the cost of housing for his staff and volunteers, which is paid for by the venue, has doubled from £300,000 to £600,000 since Covid, Mr Alderson added.

“You can see the cracks appearing now,” he said. “If you look at the programmes, companies are coming for shorter periods of time, they can’t take the risk. That puts pressure on venues because there’s more interruption to the programme. The ambition on stage is getting smaller and smaller, there are more and more one and two person shows because they can’t afford it.

“All the production staff who used to surround a Fringe show, all of those jobs have been cut.”

He said venues needed to “balance the huge weights on the see saw”, describing the Fringe as a “half a billion pound economy for the City of Edinburgh, funded by artists who lose money”.

He said the rising price of accommodation, coupled with fees to the Fringe Society and the cost of the infrastructure required to build a festival site was pushing venues “past the tipping point” as costs associated with council licensing agreements rose “massively”.

He said: “The problem is, in that balance structure, the city has become more expensive. Legislation has meant our costs around getting the licensing have gone up since they introduced the planning requirement.”

Venues were generally exempt from the requirement for planning permission as they operate for just three weeks during the Fringe, until rules were changed, stating the set up and take down time had to be included in the 28 day limit for a temporary structure.

Mr Alderson said: “Our licensing costs went from around £3,000 to £4,000 a year - to this year, once we’ve paid consultants and solicitors, we’re looking at nearly £60,000. It’s gone up massively. Those are not directly council costs, but they’re created by legislation. Meanwhile, the rising costs of renting out rooms is created by legislation. Both of those are having a dramatic effect.

“You couple that with rises in commissions and all of those things and you turn what was a humble profit suddenly into a loss.”

The Edinburgh International Television Festival last year mooted plans to move the event outside of Edinburgh, in a bid to “reduce costs for delegates”. It launched a bidding process inviting UK cities to apply to host the television industry event from 2027 onwards, with Greater Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh announced as the shortlisted cities in March. It has not yet publicly announced which city has won the bid.

Mr Alderson said: “Everybody has got to try to bring the temperature down, because the festival is in real dire straits and the city will miss it when it’s gone. Look at the TV festival, they went because of the cost and I think they’re wrong to do it.

“But they’re going because they can’t afford to do it any more and that, surely, is the canary in the coalmine. How much has to fall apart before we go, ‘Oh actually, there really is a problem’?”

He added: “The idea that there’s a lot of money being taken out of the festivals by these big, venue organisations is just a myth, we live on a shoestring.”

Last year’s accounts for the Pleasance, filed to Companies House in October, showed a £61,000 deficit for the year.

Mr Alderson said the accounts for the 12 months to November 2025, which will be published later this year, would show a small surplus - due to a grant from the City of London for improvements to heating in the Pleasance’s London theatre and the sale of a temporary venue structure - but warned the Edinburgh festival is still making a loss.

He said Pleasance was having to cut the number of Edinburgh school children offered free tickets by half to under 1,000 this year because he "just can't afford it".

“That, to me, is a tragedy, because this is the very thing the festival should be doing,” he said.

He also called for investment in venues, saying the council’s visitor levy should be put towards supporting Fringe infrastructure.

“You have to support the infrastructure to support the festivals, so we can support early careers,” he said. “It’s a whole, circular cycle.

“I can’t afford to buy new black curtains, or the latest lighting or a new sound desk. I can’t afford to put the wages up any more. That’s really problematic. The very city that depends on its festival is the very same that is eating it.

“We don’t want funding every year, every time, but if you don’t help us with the infrastructure, then the venues will start to crack.”

He called for a “sensible, clever compromise” to the planning rules.

In April, David Bates, who created the Famous Speigeltent, which he has brought to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe since 1996, warned he had had to scrap plans to locate the tent in St Andrew Square in August after he was unable to obtain a building warrant to satisfy new council regulations.

“He just can’t get through the paperwork and how long has he been bringing that Speigeltent, years?” asked Mr Alderson. “It’s just a lack of joined up thinking and what seems to be a lack of a sensible, joined up approach to something we’ve been doing for decades. That is what is killing the festival right now and that is what is getting in the way of progress.

“We open the same spaces year in year out, same theatres, with the same set of drawings, under the same conditions every year for 20, 30 40 years. It seems to me a waste of resources for us to have to give the council literally files upon files of the same information every year.

“It doesn’t mean we want to cut corners in terms of safety. It seems to be this cycle of management that has got out of control, we need to get in control of this constant rise in paperwork.

A spokesperson for the City of Edinburgh Council said: “We comply with Scottish Government legislation and will continue to work closely with organisers to enable the festivals to go ahead safely, ensuring the public can enjoy participating.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson described the Fringe as one of Scotland’s “signature events”.

“We are committed to working with the Fringe Society, and all partners who deliver it, to help safeguard the future of the Edinburgh Fringe as a world leading cultural asset, built on the principle of free access,” a statement added.