Look at my Fringe

Like everyone performing at the Edinburgh Fringe I’m about to make a lot of mistakes. I’m about to lose a lot of money too. But after ten years covering the festival as a reviewer I’m at least able to predict which errors I can’t avoid blundering into.

First, the campaign to attract a crowd will be pointless. This stands to reason. Five or six thousand hopefuls swarm up to Edinburgh each year and they all use the same marketing strategy. Attention-seeking stunts on the Royal Mile. Tiresome afternoons forcing leaflets on unimpressed Americans. Fly-posting after dark, on tiptoe, by torchlight. Desperate texts to friends of friends promising five-for-one discounts. Bravura letters to newspaper editors offering ‘an exclusive front-page splash about this groundbreaking work of art’. None of these endeavours qualify as true promotional work. They’re just a neurotic alternative to curling up on your bunk-bed murmuring, ‘Why did I come here?’ into a flask of cooking sherry.

Second, the publicist will let you down. You can try chivvying him or her (more likely her) to make a greater effort to promote your show but she has scant reason to bother. Publicists are brilliant at selling themselves to performers but as soon as the fee of £1,000 (plus VAT) reaches their bank account their enthusiasm melts like August sleet and they head to the Pleasance to self-medicate with the hospitality budget. Fringe veterans tell me that even getting a publicist to attend their show is a major coup. The most your PR firm will do is to email your press release to their ‘exclusive list of 100 high-value media contacts’, which is how they describe the spam accounts of the Critics’ Circle. What they don’t tell you is that getting a critic to see a show by sending an email is like getting David Cameron to give you an earldom by sending smoke signals.