“Ticket sales still 19% down on 2019.” “Can the Edinburgh fringe survive?” It was surprising to leave a jam-packed, jubilant festival to read those headlines, but then, that’s the fringe for you: so all encompassing and vast that anything can be said of it – It’s thriving! It’s doomed! It’s art! It’s capitalism! – and still be true. But the facts remain the facts: 2.5m tickets were sold for this year’s fringe. That’s an 11% increase year-on-year, but still lower than the comparable figure for the fringe’s last pre-Covid year.
Add that to complaints about the city’s out-of-control accommodation costs, which exclude or bankrupt performers and audiences both, and it can look like a grim picture for the world’s biggest arts festival. Whither the Edinburgh fringe when the artists on whom it depends are in open revolt, and audiences, amid a cost-of-living crisis, refuse to return in sufficient numbers?
