About Us

Why a Free Festival | Credits and Thanks

The concept of our venues is to provide an alternative to increasing prices for performers and audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe. We aim:

Why A Free Festival?

The Edinburgh Fringe was founded in 1947 by a number of performers who simply turned up at the Invitation-only Edinburgh International Festival, and put on their own shows, creating a Fringe Festival around the International Festival. Over the years since then, the Fringe has continually expanded, but has still kept its original premise: an arts festival open to anybody who wished to take part.

But problems have arisen for performers and audiences.  These are partly due to the Fringe's popularity, and partly due to promoters and venue owners who have upped the cost of hiring spaces, and who have secured more and more locations, making it a closed market for performers finding spaces. Originally, it was an open arts festival that anyone could take part in.  Now it is an open arts festival that anyone can take part in — as long as they can afford it.

In recent years the costs associated with bringing a show to the Fringe have spiraled. In some circumstances, a performer can sell all the tickets for all the nights at his or her venue and still make a loss, with the biggest complaint by Fringegoers, whether they are tourists or from Edinburgh being the high price of tickets.  Fringegoers have blamed artists for the high ticket prices, but it’s usually the venue who sets the prices, often against the wishes of performers.

What does this mean?  The more a show costs, the less people are willing to take a chance on it.  If a show featuring an unknown artist costs less than £5, you may take a chance on it  If the same show costs over £10, you probably won’t -  A Fringe needs to be cheap, or else people will merely see the performers who are already famous — and they don’t need a Fringe!  The only shows that put money in the pockets of the artists are usually the shows of the already famous.

The History of the Free shows at the Free Festival Venues

Laughing Horse promoters Alex Petty and Kevin McCarron first came to the fringe several years before they started running Fringe venues. Originally they wanted to run a comedy show at a traditional venue, but soon realised that financially this would be a disaster, and remained as only Fringe visitors for a number of years.

Over this time there was a Free show that they visited numerous times, that copied the principles of busking and moved the busker indoors - people watching the performance and contributing at the end. This eccentric compere of this show had run his show for several years. moving from venue to venue, on a free basis, but had never been able to expand this philosophy to encompass other performers shows.

In 2004 Laughing Horse decided to try to run a show under the same restraints, to see if the principle actually worked in a more mainstream environment, and also sponsored the original show. In doing so set-up a "free Fringe" along with the orignal show's compere. Laughing Horse provided the equipment and management for the venue and and also invited other performers to take the space - one more 'The Fool', did. It was at this stage Alex and Kevin met Linsay Watts, owner of 'Linsay's', who would prove to be instrumental in the expansion of the free shows and venues. The shows were successful, with good audiences - and with the support and hard work of Linsay, and the promise of sponsorship by Belhaven Brewery to cover some costs, it was decided to expand the shows the following year. 

In 2005 a second room was added at Linsay's, along with another venue - and Laughing Horse supplied equipment and programmed the expanded roster of shows, with the assistant of Kevin Shepherd who organised transportation of the equipment from London. This spurred more growth in 2006 to four venues, and now in 2007 to eight venues - each year with the Laughing Horse bringing more people to Edinburgh to help with the managing of the event.

At the end of 2006 Laughing Horse set up an organisation group of performers, venue owners and promoters who would help shape the way the venues would run in further years, now renaming what they were doing as "The Free Festival", and distancing themselves from the original Free Show compere and his more eccentric views of organising Fringe venues. These were people who wished to return the following years and help expand the event, and assist new performers who would be taking part.

In 2007, the "Free Festival" Programme doubled in size again, with over 130 shows and 10 venues, in what was  the biggest and most eclectic selection of free Fringe shows there has ever been, with a huge selection of comedy shows, groundbreaking Theatre, Music, Dance and Art. The show sincreased again to 156 in 2008, and then 231 in 2009, and then 304 in 2010 - continually expanding the programmes diversity into more Fringe genres. 

And now we've arrived at 2011  - with the shows and venues increasing once more, to just over 6,000 performances of 340 show in 17 venues. 2011 looks like it is going to be another great year as we are once again provide the biggest ever programme of free shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and truly put the alternative back into the Fringe once more!

In 2011, the Free Festival will be brought to you by....