Fringe chiefs thwart 'self-sabotage' public funding bid

The Herald Scotland

11 hours ago

Chief executive Tony Lankester, who is in his first summer in the role, has seen off a behind-the-scenes rebellion led by Peter Buckley Hill, the founder of 'Free Fringe' venues at the festival, which sparked fears the society would struggle to secure public funding in future.
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He wanted members of the society to ensure there was a 'level playing field' for artists and it was not doing anything to 'discriminate in favour of one show against another'.
However Mr Lankester claimed it was 'fanciful' to suggest that the UK and Scottish Governments, who are supported the festival to the tune of more than £1 million this year, would keep putting money in if there was no 'rigour' or 'oversight' into how it was being distributed.
Tony Lankester is chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. (Image: Gordon Terris)
The bid to rethink the Fringe's funding programmes was rejected by 80 members, while just 23 voted in support.
Mr Buckley Hill and his supporters wanted the society to commit to distribute all public funding should be distribute 'equally and equitably' among all artists who take part in the event.
Ruxandra Cantir's show Pickled Republic is part of the Made in Scotland showcase at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (Image: Andy Catlin)
However Mr Lankester said this would mean the Fringe Society spending tens of thousands of pounds to administer a fund that would distribute grants of just £6 to artists.
The motion put forward for the Fringe Society AGM stated that 'the principle of open access' remains at the heart of the Fringe' and argued that the charity has 'no power or mandate to 'distinguish between the artistic quality of shows, or the value of venues'.
Free Fringe founder Peter Buckley Hill has led criticism of how public funding support for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is distributed.The Fringe Society has insisted it has been an 'impartial, arms-length administrator' of public funding, using independent expert panels and assessors to decide on funding applications.
However a key criteria for funding is that it is intended to support artists and performers who 'do not have an existing high profile and artists who face barriers to funding and the arts more generally'.
Speaking at the AGM, Mr Buckley Hill claimed most of the public funding handled by the Fringe Society was being used to help acts pay for 'bloody great big posters.'
Mr Buckley Hill suggested that the Fringe Society's application forms were 'framed in middle class terms.'
And it feels counter-intuitive and self sabotaging to be entertaining or supporting a motion that will have the effect of doing the opposite – not just to the programmes we currently run, but any future initiative or project which seeks to put money back into the ecosystem, into the pockets of those who deliver the Fringe and take personal and financial risk to do so.
He said: 'Giving some shows an unfair advantage over other shows is a violation of the open access principle that the Fringe has always stood for and still boasts of.
'Some people are richer than others. We can't stop that, nevertheless we can stop exacerbating that, and instead work in the direction of equality for all and at least level off the playing field.'
Stand-up comic Kate Smurthwaite said the distribution of public funding by the Fringe Society had encouraged "an advertising arms race' at the festival.
She added: 'We now have a situation in which those of us who don't have funding are suddenly being out-postered by people who are being sponsored by government.'
Mr Lankester insisted the Fringe Society 'could not be more transparent' about how the public funding it is responsible for has been allocated and distributed.
He added: 'We agree that the Fringe Society should not play favourites. We agree that the Fringe Society itself should not be making subjective decisions or assessments on the artistic merits of a piece of work or of a performer. We agree that the Fringe Society should not discriminate against one artist in favour of another. We want to state clearly that we don't do any of those things.
'Without some baseline criteria, without an independent group of assessors, without the rigor of Fringe Society oversight of the process, that money would never have been made available to artists, full stop.
'It's fanciful to suggest that we can strip out that rigour, strip out that oversight and strip out of that process and funders would still be willing to give us money.'
Mr Lankester said the 'single biggest challenge' facing Fringe artists was the cost of bringing work to Edinburgh.
He added: 'Supporting them in overcoming that challenge by advocating for funds to come into the ecosystem that wouldn't otherwise have done is exactly the role of the Fringe Society.
'It feels counter-intuitive and self sabotaging to be entertaining or supporting a motion that will have the effect of doing the opposite – not just to the programmes we currently run, but any future initiative or project which seeks to put money back into the ecosystem, into the pockets of those who deliver the Fringe, and take personal and financial risk to do so.'
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