EDINBURGH Fringe comedians have warned that shows are being cancelled as audiences appear to fall away during the final week of the festival.
Scottish comic Susie McCabe said performers would leave the Fringe with “a bad taste in their mouths”, blaming its later start date, soaring accommodation costs and what she described as inadequate support from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.
It comes after Edinburgh Comedy Festival director Nica Burns said comedians had noticed quieter crowds, with performers reporting that “something is just different this year”.
Veteran comedian Ruby Wax is understood to have sold fewer than 200 tickets for a performance at the 750-capacity Pleasance Grand this week.
McCabe, who is performing Susie McCabe: Coming of Rage at Assembly’s Gordon Aikman Theatre on George Square, said in a public post: “The last week of the Fringe has felt incredibly long. A lot of shows have been pulled and artists will be leaving a with a bad taste in their mouths. The Fringe this year has started too late. The Fringe Society have not considered this Fringe resides in Scotland, in its capital, it is the biggest arts festival in the world.
“However, while the Fringe sits in its lovely new home, its website and its app are an abomination.
"Then we have the dates. Starting at the tail end of the first week in August is absolutely ludicrous, no consideration of when Scottish schools go back, which is within days of the festival starting. It’s the last Friday of the Fringe and people are sitting with half full rooms.”
The festival is running later this year, from August 7 until 31. Schools in Scotland returned as early as August 12.
The Fringe Society opened its new Fringe Central base on Infirmary Street earlier this summer after a major refurbishment.
McCabe said her own audience figures had remained “solid and consistent” but argued the issue affected the wider festival.
She added: “I have been incredibly fortunate, my numbers have been solid and consistent throughout the month. However, this is not about me, this is about the Fringe as a collective. Every artist, every venue has a responsibility to deliver and above all, the Fringe Society must do better."
In a message to the festival, she concluded: "To be the biggest arts festival in the world, you have to curate the old and the new, the established and the never been heard of. Fringe Society have let us all down.
“The Fringe Society and the venues need to come together and agree on earlier dates.
“Voices like mine are being lost and punters like me are being excluded. The arts would not happen without the artists, so those in their fancy office chairs need to help us out ... to keep their lights on.”
Burns, who has run the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for more than four decades, said the atmosphere around the festival had changed.
“Definitely this week, certainly on the ground, it feels much harder and there’s fewer people around,” she said.
“Comedians come to do three weeks, they really try to build their show and people feel every performance they do they’ve learned something and got better and better and they really want people to see them at their best.
“By my long experience, the third week has always been the best week, but something is different this, year, it’s just changed.”
Tony Lankester, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, responded to McCabe, stating: “We recognise that school holiday dates can shape audience attendance patterns, particularly among working parents and families.
"However, we consider these factors in the context of the festival as a whole, balancing different stakeholders.
“This year, the opening weekend saw strong audience engagement, suggesting audience patterns may have shifted from previous years, but audiences have continued to support artists across the festival overall. We will continue to support artists and audiences in having a positive experience of the Edinburgh Fringe until the final day of the festival, regardless of scheduled dates.”
