WHY… on earth do you go to Edinburgh Fringe, Ginger?
- auntygingermanagem
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
A question I get asked often, and a question I ask myself from time to time. Well, I thought I’d write a little blog to answer that.
Regular followers, friends and foe often comment - sometimes to my face - ‘Ginger, you post about nothing else, why’, or ‘Ginge, why are you spending all your money on this, when you have a full diary singing in bars?’. OK, let me break it down…
VOLUME
Firstly, if you’ve never been to Edinburgh during the month of August, let me try to describe what it’s like. Not something that can easily done to be fair, but I’ll try.
For the month, there are OVER 3,500 shows running! That could be 3,500 shows happening, PER DAY. Of course, some of those shows will just run for a few nights, some for a few weeks, but many for the full month. Now obviously, no city has 3,500 theatres, so what happens? Every nook and cranny becomes a theatre… classrooms, shipping containers, basements, attics and street corners - all become theatres. My shows were in a converted car park over the last 2 years, honestly!
You walk the streets and everywhere you look is BRIMMING with creativity. It’s exciting. There’s a buzz. Literally, all the world's a stage. Every time you walk you’ll see some kind of street performance or someone dressed amazingly. You’ll also get attacked with hundreds of flyers. You'll blink and all of a sudden 10 amazing show flyers are in your hand, and you'll wish you had the time and money to see them all. They also run pretty much all day and all night. Wanna watch a show at 9am? You can! Wanna watch a show at 1am? You can!
VARIETY
Of those 3,500 shows, you can see any and every type of every entertainment you can imagine. Drag, comedy, cabaret, musicals, magic, children’s shows, circus acts, poetry, burlesque, concerts, live bands... the options are ENDLESS. So as a punter, and as someone who LOVES watching entertainment, you are truly spoiled for choice.
It is commonplace for punters to watch between 6 and 8 shows a day. Critics often try to review over 100 shows during Edinburgh. Each show usually between 50 minutes and one hour. The joy of the short shows means you can cram a lot in!
Acts are from ALL over the world, and often so, SOOO talented, some of them THE BEST at their game. You can literally walk out of shows mind blown - at how terrible it is, or how amazing it is. You may have just seen the biggest future star, or someone that really shouldn’t be working.
There are, OF COURSE, Big Names, Medium Names, Little Names and complete unknowns.… I’ve had the joy of seeing Jimmy Carr, Ed Byrne, Frankie Boyle and other BIG comedians whilst up in Edinburgh, but I’ve also seen hundreds of artists that are either brand new, or super experienced but not known yet.
PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Now, it’s true that Edinburgh has made the careers of many. You’re surrounded by reviewers, agents, press, media and talent scouts, but you’re also surrounded by competition. So, will you DEFINITELY get famous from it? NO! But can you make some great contacts along they way? YES! I’ve personally made some great contacts from it which has generated enough work to pay back most if not all of my Edinburgh costs. Am I famous? No, but do I value those contacts and all I’ve learned from them? YES!
THE EXPENSE
Edinburgh is expensive. It’s CRAZY expensive. Some argue it’s exploitative or prohibitive at best. Even if you go to the free Fringe rather than one of the big four companies, you still have HUGE accommodation costs, hiked up food and transport costs, and that's not even mentioning the huge amounts for marketing! This is what puts people off, and for me, it’s a big consideration every time. However, to me, Edinburgh should be treated like a trade fair. You’re investing in yourself, you’re networking like hell, you’re making friends, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll pay off.
But there’s one big reason I love the Fringe that I haven’t spoken about yet...
THE CREATIVE CHALLENGE
For me, I want Aunty Ginger to become the best performer she can be. What does that dream look like? Well, I would LOVE to fill theatres with people having come to see me and my shows, and for those shows to centre around comedy. The shows will MAYBE have a couple songs in, but largely, I just want to make people laugh.
Now, the way an audience listen when they’ve paid to see you is TOTALLY different than when you’re singing in a bar. A job I LOVE by the way, and a job I can’t ever imagine not doing, but it is a different experience.
When you’re singing in a bar, you’re lucky if they’ve come to see you, it’s far more likely they’ve come to see ‘a drag queen’ or walked in by accident. In any event, your job is to keep them in and get them to put money behind the till. So, if they need you to sing Kylie, you sing Kylie… again, nothing wrong with Kylie, and I want to keep singing Kylie, but, if you want to have the creative challenge of trying tell jokes for an hour, that doesn’t work unless they’re in the mood to laugh and they KNOW that’s what they’ve come in for.
To get to my goal of filling a theatre and trying to make people laugh for an hour, I see two challenges:
Getting people to know who I am
Making sure the original shows I put on are good enough
Well, Edinburgh helps me with both of those goals. Meeting people, testing out shows, learning from reviews, going back the next year with something stronger, and generally improving as an artist. Now is it proving worth it? I’d say so, but I’ve got a long way to go! But, as a creative, I can tell you this: I’m fucking loving the journey of trying… and I’m getting to see so much amazing art and meet so many people in the meantime. Honestly, it’s a ball.
DID THAT ANSWER THE QUESTION?
I don’t know if it did, I hope it did, but if you’re really stuck… Maybe come up and buy a ticket to my show, I promise, it won’t bore you!
Comments