Organisers vow Fringe ‘will happen’
Organisers of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe today vowed that an event “will happen” in the city this year but admitted it “might not look as it has before.”
Several different options on what shape the event may take are to be explored over the next few weeks as part of contingency planning for the festival, which has run continuously since 1947.
Fringe Society chief executive Shona Mccarthy has announced a four-week delay in the deadline for shows to secure a place in the official Fringe programme, to early May.
The festival’s official launch has also been put back a month until early July to give Fringe venues and promoters as much flexibility as possible. It is understood a printed programme may not be published this year.
Ms Mccarthy said the society would spend the next few weeks exploring “a variety of options to ensure we provide artists and audiences with the best possible tools for navigating the festival.” However she has pledged that it will not make “rash or damaging decisions” affecting participants, audiences, its own staff or the business sector.
Ms Mccarthy said: “We still don’t know what the future holds. There’s science and modelling and graphs coming at us from every corner and they all tell us something different. So we will keep focused and carry on with a view that there will be a Fringe in August.
“We don’t know what form that Fringe will take, what it will look like, but we are regrouping every day, listening to all our stakeholders. A Fringe will happen, a programme will happen, but it just might not look as it has before.
“We will explore a variety of options to ensure we provide artists and audiences with the best possible tools for navigating the festival, whilst also being live to the rapidly changing situation all around us.” There was already a rapid acceleration of call-offs and when the Prime Minister advised people to stay at home, there were cancellations on an unprecedented scale.
“It’s not just about the international market, it’s very much about the domestic market too. People seem to want to stay away, be safe and following the official guidelines from government. We’re basically at ground zero now. The big issue now is forward bookings, and how we ensure they continue to flow through, but there’s little or nothing coming in.
“Everybody is in the current situation of complete unknown, on what might be lockdown, how long the virus will take to move and when transport operators will revert to normality, if normality ever comes back at all.
“Some businesses are offering booking re-adjustments, which is great. We can only hope things progress in such a way that we can salvage some of the summer and beyond, but it will be a very slow return to anything of significance. “My colleagues in Ireland have effectively written off the summer and there are economists saying it could be 12-18 months before there is a recovery. In real terms, I think it could be as long as that, if not longer.
“Our domestic market will hopefully be the one that supports the industry, but I would question how much disposable income people will have at their discretion to spend on leisure or hospitality.
“And even if a business such as a hotel is ready to go ahead, will the supply chain be stable enough to support it? If a few links in the chain are broken, it will not be possible.”
Malcolm Roughead, Visitscotland’s chief executive, said: “As we all know, the tourism industry is a resilient one as we saw after foot and mouth and 9/11. But this is already looking to be more severe and we will be working closely with the industry once we move into recovery mode.”
Russell Imrie, spokesman for the Edinburgh Hotels Association, said: “Business has fallen off a cliff since 1 March and cancellations of rooms, meetings and weddings are coming in by the hour.
“Business through to at least the end of May is a write-off. Hotels will start to close this weekend without government support.”