The Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Information
Following is lots of information for new
performers on how the Free Festival works,
who we are and what doing a free festival
show will entail.
About Laughing Horse
The Free Festival is
organised by Alex Petty, and run by Laughing
Horse Festivals Ltd, and although
comedy is where we began we present shows
from all Fringe genres, with an ever
expanding programme of Theatre, Cabaret,
Music, Children's, Spoken Word and other
shows every year.
Laughing Horse have
run the Free Festival since 2004, and also
run festival venues and produce shows
globally - at the 2nd, 3rd
and 4th largest
world Fringe festivals in Adelaide, Perth
(Australia) and
Brighton, as well as at the Melbourne
International Comedy Festival, Hollywood
Fringe and a number of smaller festivals in
the UK and Asia.
when it comes to festivals we know what we
are talking about, and how to ensure your
show is the best it can be at one of our
venues.
Laughing Horse Comedy
is also a professional production company
that promotes comedy events and venues
throughout the UK, books comedy venues large
and small, promotes on of the UK's largest
new comedy searches, and teaches stand-up
comedy through its comedy courses.
"The Laughing Horse's free Fringe shows
serve as a useful reminder of that
frequently encountered concept - The Spirit
of the Fringe" - Malcolm Hay, Time Out
About
the Free Festival
The Free Festival
began in 2004, and in that time the Free
festival has grown from a single venue to
being one of the largest producers of shows
at the Edinburgh Fringe, last year we
had 17 venues and more than 30 performance
spaces. We annually have over 300 shows and
more than 6,000 performances at our venues.

We believe in Quality - we supply quality
venues, and quality support for you and your
shows - you supply a quality show.
The Free Festival
allows performers to experience the
Edinburgh Fringe, in professionally managed
and equipped venues, without the overbearing
costs of the paid venues, or the
shambolic nature of some other free venue
promoters who only provide empty rooms and
expect you to provide all of your own venue
equipment, or who run shows in rooms that
are not separate performance spaces. We
believe as a performer you should be
concentrating on your show, not other
concerns about venues that are unsuitable. A
Free show should be treated as
professionally as a paid show. A good
quality show in a good quality venue!
We are still a
major part of the Fringe, and all our shows
are part of the main Fringe programme,
and as such all of our performers gain all
of the benefits of being a Fringe Performer
and being part of the world's largest arts
festival, with performers qualifying for all
of the major awards, and getting the
opportunity of getting reviews, or being
seen by promoters and other industry people.
You can achieve everything you want out of
Edinburgh with a free show, without the
overbearing costs of paid venues.

In 2013 two of the
main Edinburgh Comedy Awards went to Free
Shows, Adrienne Truscott was part
of our programme within the Heroes of Fringe
section curated by Bob Slayer. The third main
comedy award to the performer friendly Stand
venue. This shows you can get everything
you want from the Fringe and not have to be
tied to the huge costs of the
mega-paid-venues. There have been
more free award winners and nominees since
then, who have returned to performing for
free after their wins.
2010
saw Free Festival (and first ever free show)
show "An Audience with Imran Yusuf" become
the first ever free show to be nominated for
the main Edinburgh Comedy Awards (Formally
the Perrier Awards), in 2012 two of the
five nominees for the inaugural Cabaret
awards where free festival
shows. In 2012-2015 Free Festival shows have also been
nominated for and won awards from The
Edinburgh Comedy Awards, Three Weeks Editor Awards, Total Theatre
Awards, Musical Theatre Matters Awards,
Fresh Air Radio Awards, Mervin Stutter's
Pick of the Fringe and The Malcolm
Hardee awards - an event that has been
hosted as part of the Free Festival since
2010.
In 2012 Free Festival show
"Austentatious" was widely regarded as
the best show at the Fringe, and they
returned in 2013,
eight of the nine top free shows rated
by the Scotsman newspaper where Free
Festival shows, and our shows in 2013 raked
in 40 five-star and140 four-star reviews.
The Free Festival has become
known as the place to see quality shows, as well as for shows
that offer the full diversity of the Fringe
programme.
2017 was another big
year - with two Best Comedy nominees for the
Free Festival, Mae Martin and Ahir Shah.
In total the majority of award nominees in
Edinburgh are now coming from free, pay what
you want and independent venues.
We
seek to only operate from quality venues
that are welcoming to audiences and
performers, situated in central, popular
areas of Edinburgh - there's no point
coming the Fringe and trying to run a show
in a venue miles out of town, or somewhere
unsuitable!
All of our venues are set-up, at
minimum, to the standard that you would
expect of small comedy club and in many
cases to a much higher standard, with sound
systems, lighting, stages and AV equipment,
and in the case of the Counting House’s
ballroom, Ghillie Dhu, Cabaret Voltaire and The Three
Sisters, we offer a high specification
performance space on a par, if not better
than many large paid venues with a full
lighting rigs and sound systems, a large
stage and room suitable for large theatre
productions, full cabaret shows or big-name
comedians. All
of our exact venue specifications can be
found here.
We
believe that for performers to produce the
best possible shows they should be
concentrating on their performances, which
is why we fully manage the set-up. Performers
should not be worrying about finding
equipment for venues, coping with
performance spaces without facilities or at
the other end of the scale worrying about
large financial losses. We aim to foster the
best atmosphere possible at our venues, to
help you achieve your Fringe goals, be they
media attention, excellent reviews,
furthering your career in the arts or simply
performing during the Fringe to large
audiences and having a very enjoyable
August.
Overall
we encourage an atmosphere of teamwork, and
foster an ethos where performers volunteer
to help maintain the success of all our
venues and shows, who all work together to
the benefit of everyone - with the best in
new talent being encouraged along-side
bigger name performers.
Since we started running
free venues we have had full runs of shows
from the likes of Phil Kay, Janey Godley, Tom Binns, Pappy’s Fun
Club, John Gordillo, Lewis Schaffer, Liam
Williams, Imran
Yusuf, Nick Wilty, Sol Bernstein, Adam Crow,
Anis Desai, Mae Martin, Sarah-Louise Young,and Ivor Dembina
and many, many more - plus
appearances on our stages from performers
such as Alan Carr, Russell Kane, Scott
Capurro, Stewart Lee, Arthur Smith, Richard
Herring, Brendan Burns, Marcus Brigstoke,
Reg D. Hunter, Dan Antopolski, Daniel
Kitson, Mark Thomas, Josie Long and Paul
Foot - amongst many other stars of comedy,
theatre, music and dance.
Many of our shows
have been taken from the Fringe and gone
from there to break into a full time career
in the arts, UK and international tours, to
the the west end, off-Broadway, paid
work from Beijing, to Adelaide, Melbourne,
Singapore - and gone on to Radio Series, TV
appearances, Scriptwriting for Disney, and to performing at
Festivals worldwide - and so much more!
We run all of our
venues to provide a mixed programme of shows
that encompass all Fringe genres including
theatre, music, comedy, cabaret, opera,
musicals, children’s shows, events, spoken
word and art displays – all programmed by
experienced producers in each area.
Our
venues have capacities from 35 to 550 and
are able to accommodate a huge variety of
performances. Each venue also has a
number of friendly bars and spaces for
audiences to congregate, including four with
dedicated outdoor areas and outdoor bars.
We manage the three largest free venues in
Edinburgh: The Free Sisters, Espionage and
the Counting House - the festival's very own
free mega-venues.
We aim to encourage
and create better conditions for performers,
and better value for audiences while being
inclusive of all performers and working with
others who share that ethos. We believe
that being negative about other
organisations detrimental to everybody’s
aims and would rather concentrate on doing
our best to promote the shows in our own
venues, and work with other organisations
where we can - and this has included working
with Underbelly, The Museum of Scotland,
Kopparberg, The Alternative Fringe, Various
Churches and smaller venues, and many other
organisations over our years at the Fringe.
The Free Festival as a
whole gains fantastic reviews, there are
award winners and nominees and coverage from
media organisations each year including
Sky News, Reuters, The BBC, STV, The
International Television Festival, The
Guardian, The Independent, The Times as well
as many reviews and articles in Scottish
and Edinburgh
publications and media such as the Scotsman,
The List, the Metro, Leith FM, Forth FM,
Chortle and other media and web based media.
Our performers achieved success with awards,
a huge number of reviews and further work,
higher profiles and tours and productions of
their shows in the UK and internationally.
"[Free
shows are] a reminder of the roots of all
this. The main fringe is colossally
expensive big business now, it’s rather
disingenuous to call it “Fringe” when it’s
now a main event and cost the price of a
small car to put on." - Julia
Chamberlain (Highlight/SYTYF/Chortle)
Why
Free?
One of the two main
gripes of performers at the Fringe is the
costs of producing a show at the Fringe,
which is often quoted as being between
£6,000 and £10,000, and performers having to
present their shows to small audiences - a
problem that seems to be getting worse each
year. By performing your show for free
you can negate both of those issues.
We don’t charge a hire
fee for the spaces, therefore removing a
large amount of your costs, and audiences
aren’t charged to come in, meaning much
larger audiences – and at the Fringe that
still means people are coming to see your
show, it is just that being free means they
come in large numbers because of the overall
dissatisfaction with high ticket prices
across the Fringe in general. Audiences are
asked for a contribution on the way out,
which goes 100% to the performer.
The
average audience for one of our Free shows
is around the 40-50 mark, although that
obviously depends a lot on time, location
and the performers PR. The average donation
per person is between £1 and £2. Many
performers will take home over £50-£100 a
day, with some performers reporting
collections in excess of £200 or more -
particularly for the big name shows and
larger productions.
"What should worry [now
ex-Fringe director] Morgan and, indeed, the
Big Four, not entirely smiling all the way
to the bank, is the continuing growth of the
free Fringe, where punters pay what they
wish at the end of a show; some comics
report they have made more from the
collection bucket than they ever did at the
main venues."- The Guardian
What will it cost me?
The cost to use our
venues is completely free, there is no hire
charge for the space at all.
To cover the cost of
equipment, damages and repairs, central Free
Festival publicity, signage and advertising
we ask each show to pay £100 into central
funds, which is the equivalent of around one
days collection or less for most shows. For this you get all of the
venue equipment that is listed in the venue
plans, it covers all venue signage and
advertising banners for all shows, plus the
production of 90,000+ Free Festival
brochures, the website and a lot of general
PR, advertising, posters and flyers. (Single
performance shows only have to pay £50 to
us)
There are no hidden
costs payable to us. We do not ask you
to fund-raise, sell anything, or surprise
you with last minute 'voluntary'
contributions that make free expensive, as other free promoters have
done in the past. It's simple, upfront
and honest - you pay
£95 and you get all of the services listed
above. and usually more, as we try to do
more for our performers each year and
constantly improve our spaces and services.
Along with this you
need to pay for your entry into the main
Fringe programme, last year that was
around £295 for a run of shows, or £80 for a
single or two performance run You must enter the
Fringe programme, as without this your
show does not exist to a large amount of the
audience, or at all to the press, media and
arts industry. Without this programme entry
you are not part of the Fringe, and your
show will not be successful. If you do not
go into the programme you save £295 in
March, but will loose more than £1000 in
August as you will be struggling for
audiences, and any chance of career
progression. Without going into the
Fringe programme it simply isn't worth
looking at putting on a Fringe show this
year you loose so much. 
You will have to pay
for your own show advertising, and this can
be as little as £130 with the special
deal we have organised with Tenfold
printing, and this covers 5000 A6 flyers and
50 posters. We even have designers on hand
who offer discounted design for our free
shows if you need this.
The above should be
seen as the minimum advertising required,
as even though your show is free you will
still need to publicise your performances to
get good sized audiences. You can do more,
and the principle of the more you put into
your show, the more you will get out of it
really holds true. Use your funds wisely and
if you invest in PR, further advertising and
more marketing your audiences and media
coverage will grow. If you treat your
show professionally, then the media and
audiences will treat you as a professional
performer.
Other
than that, it is up to you – obviously
you will have your accommodation costs, your
travel costs, plus it is up to you how much
further you push your promotion by getting
professional PR, or increasing your
advertising, display advertising in
publications. In terms if display
advertising the Free Festival has negotiated
discounts with several publications.
Remember that you are putting on a
professional show, and your production
should be treated professionally - the more
you put into it, the more you will get out
of it.
With the collection money
taken, many shows broke even, and some made
money last year - but a lot of shows it will
still cost money to be in Edinburgh, though
a lot less than a hiring a paid venue. Most
shows losses are counted in the low hundreds
at the Free Festival – and of course
that can be recouped from work gained after
the festival. if you are able you can also
sell merchandise after your performance to
increase your income further (with 100% of
merchandise profits going to the performer).
The
Free festival also helps you to enjoy the
Fringe by offering performers discounts
at our venues bars, and on food and drink,
to help keep the day-to-day costs of being
at the Fringe down, plus free internet
access and networking and socializing events
throughout the month.
Being a free show you are
also currently exempt from PRS music charges.
“There is a rebellion
at the Fringe this year. High venue costs
have caused some artists to take matters
into their own hands. Doug Stanhope is
charging £7349 for a one-off show in
someone's living room and the Free Fringe
organisations have brought more acts than
ever to Edinburgh at no extra charge” –
The List
What
Will I get Out of It?
As well as the experience
of performing intensively, and the enjoyment
of being in Edinburgh with a large group of
like-minded people in a welcoming and
friendly atmosphere, you will also gain
significant chances to network with other
professionals and further your careers.
With good PR you will get
press and media attention, along with
reviews. if the show is good, performers
will be approached by promoters or bookers
for further work, potentially win awards,
and be invited to perform nationally and
internationally - you will see our
performers at other UK Festivals, in New
York, at the Melbourne Comedy Festival,
Hollywood Fringe, doing runs in West End
Theatres and in many other
places around the world, in one case a
festival run in Bejing - all because
of their Free Festival shows. You can
also significantly improve as a performer,
and every performer comes back from the
Fringe with more experience and more
professional contacts.
In short you can
achieve anything that you could do in a paid
venue, but without the significant costs of
this.
“Best
Freebies: www.freefestival.co.uk – shows are
free t1o audiences, venues do not charge
fees to performers. The Free Festival is
hosting 157 shows – with an expanded
programme which now includes children’s
shows, a free night-club and an opera.
Performers tend to pass round a hat at the
end of every show – but there is no pressure
and you’ll enjoy the relaxed and friendly
atmosphere.” – The Scotsman
"Free
shows are great. I feel I should confess
that I did one myself this year so I do have
a vested interest in this. But overall I
think they’re great for acts to be able to
try stuff out without the chance of losing
thousands of pounds. I think it gives
audiences the opportunity to see some
fantastic offering from a broader range of
artists." - Tim Arthur, Time Out Comedy
Editor
To See our Fringe Venues -
click Here
To Start your show application -
click here
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