Fringe programme is up by 10 per cent as 1590 shows added
Festival already set to be one of the biggest in the event’s history
The number of shows signing up for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has risen 10 per cent in the space of 12 months, with this year’s programme now guaranteed to be one of the biggest in the event’s 77-year history, writes Brian Ferguson.
Organisers have revealed 3,237 shows are now on sale for Scotland’s biggest cultural event, which reached the 3,000-show mark for the first time ten years ago. The 2024 programme has virtually doubled in size in the space of a month as line-ups in the leading venues have taken shape.
The surge in interest in the event has been revealed despite widespread fears about the availability and affordability of accommodation in the city.
One of the Fringe’s bestknown venues, Teviot Row House, which Gilded Balloon has used for more than 20 years, will be closed for refurbishment this August, while The Stand Comedy Club will no longer be running a venue at the west end of George Street. The biggest Fringe programme to date, in 2019, boasted 3,841 shows.
The final 2023 tally of 3,553 shows staged across 288 venues last year was the second highest in the history of the event since its launch in 1947. More than 2.44 million tickets were sold last year – the fifth highest attendance recorded by the event to date and an increase of around 11 per cent on the 2022 festival. The Fringe Society, which oversees the festival, has issued a series of warnings over the future of the event since it returned after the pandemic due to the rising costs faced by participants and a lack of funding support for the event.
Chief executive Shona McCarthy last year said the Fringe was facing an “existential crisis” and that its long-running ‘selfsustaining model” was no longer viable for artists and venues.
The Fringe Society also warned the concerns over the cost and availability of accommodation for Fringe participants had reached a “perfect storm” due to the popularity of Edinburgh as a tourism destination in August and new legislation clamping down on the short-term letting of properties, including putting up performers in spare rooms. However, the Fringe Society has been urging the city’s universities to allocate hundreds of rooms in student accommodation at set rates for artists and companies.
The UK Government agreed a £1m deal in March that will help 360 artists or companies to meet the cost of taking a show to the Fringe in 2024 and 2025. They will be able to secure bursaries of £2,500 – an increase of £500 from a pilot launched by Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the honorary president of the Fringe Society, last year.
However, Ms McCarthy has called for crisis talks over the future funding of the event after the Fringe Society had two different funding applications rejected by Creative Scotland in the space of a month and also had its annual city council funding cut. Council chiefs have since called on the Scottish Government to find “additional resources” to support the event due its “national importance.”
This year’s running tally has already soared ahead of the 3,013 shows which were in last year’s final printed programme – more than a month ahead of the launch of the 2024 brochure. Several hundred more shows are expected to be added to the line-up by then, while registration will reopen in early June for shows which are only selling tickets online.
Ms McCarthy said: “It’s an utter delight to see the range and quality of work that artists are bringing to the festival this year. In what is one of the festival’s most wide-ranging releases of shows to date, today’s announcement reflects a growing trend by artists to encourage audiences to book earlier than ever before. This latest reveal brings us one step closer to August.”
New additions to the Fringe programme include the line-up for “Fringe at Prestonfield” – the new series of cabaret events launched at the hotel last year. The 2024 line-up will include stars from comedy, theatre and musicals including Jasper Carrott, Alistair McGowan, Katherine Ryan, Liza Pulman, Joe Stillgoe, Dean Friedman,
John Owen-Jones and Kerry Ellis.
Singer and actress Diana Vickers will be appearing in Underbelly show I Wish You Well, a musical comedy inspired by Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski crash legal battle. It is the second musical theatre show inspired by the courtroom drama, with Gwyneth Goes Skiing due to be staged at the Pleasance Courtyard.
Singer and music producer John McLaughlin will be paying tribute to the songs of the late Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan in a show at the Voodoo Rooms, while producer and songwriter Phil Wainman will be reunited with special guests to recall his career working with acts like Sweet, Mud, XTC, the Bay City Rollers and Boomtown Rats.
Just the Tonic’s venue at The Caves will be playing host to Pure Imagination
– a Willy Wonka-inspired children’s show featuring comedy and magic. Among the other venues hosting magic shows will be Lauriston Castle and the Caledonian Hotel.
Assembly’s line-up will include “Decadence”, a twohour silent disco party that will be staged at the new Virgin hotel in the Old Town, while Mark Hannah will be performing his one-man “love letter to Edinburgh” at the Hibernian Supporters Club, near Easter Road stadium.
The National Library of Scotland will be playing host to Call of Cthulhu, a “live gaming experience” led by writer and designer Mike Mason, at its headquarters on George IV Bridge.
Kate Garraway will be in an in-conversation event with fellow broadcaster Iain Dale, as part of his series of events at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, which will also feature actress Miriam Margolyes, who is also appearing in a one-woman show at the Pleasance.