Performers FAQ

They’re not free. You pay a fee to be part of other organisations, we never charge you money to be part of the Free Fringe. We finance things by fundraising and voluntary contributions.

Here’s how the Free Fringe’s money works: It costs about £28,000 to run the Free Fringe. Most of that is the Wee Blue Book printing costs. It’s worth it though; the book is in huge demand at the Fringe and brings in loads of of audience for us all. The rest is buying chairs, trips to Edinburgh to negotiate venues, printing signs and backdrops, extra PA equipment. No Free Fringer is paid to work for the Free Fringe. We have three sources of income: (1) benefit gigs, (2) sale of adverts in the Wee Blue Book (and we don’t sell adverts to shows cos we don’t think that’s fair), (3) voluntary contributions. Ideally we’d like to raise so much from (1) and (2) that we don’t even have to ask for (3). Please help us by volunteering to run benefits and sell advertising. In recent years we’ve asked for £3-5 per performance, depending on room size. It’s totally voluntary. No-one is chased or put at a disadvantage if they don’t pay it. It’s quite common for people who’ve had a great Fringe to share the love and chip in a bit extra.

It is always best to apply for shows on your own behalf. Obviously you may have an agent or manager who will be organising parts of your show but we would urge all agents and managers to ask their acts to read this ethos themselves before applying. Ultimately they will be the ones responsible for sticking to it.

We have a Facebook group. We will also send out a contact list just before the fringe in case of emergencies. Plus your venue captain will have emails for everyone in your venue.

Venue captains are fellow acts who volunteer to be the go to person for that particular venue. They’re normally someone who’s done the fringe before. They should be your first point of call for any problems and will organise the setup and breakdown of your venue. Anyone can be a venue captain and if you’d like to be one, please give us a shout.

Once you arrive at the Fringe you can talk to the shows before and after you and find out what support they need. There may be other things to do like putting on ambient music for the waiting audience. It’s also nice to plug the show after yours towards the end of your show and encourage audience members to grab another drink and stick around for it. So put aside 15 minutes before and after your show to do the door for the acts before and after you.

Each venue needs setting up and breaking down, some more than others. At the start and end of the fringe, head to your venue and your venue captain will inform you what need to be done – if you’re lucky enough to be a venue with minimal set up, head to a venue that needs you. A volunteer will drop off and collect PA’s at the start and end of the fringe, another volunteer will drop of backdrops which you will need to put up behind you performance space. Some venues need chairs, we have those in storage and a team of people need to help transport them at the start and end of the fringe.

Wee Blue Books are normally dispatched to venues at the start and during the middle of the fringe. Everyone tries to keep everyone else up to date on which venue has a surplus of Wee Blue Books via Facebook. So if you’re low, flex your muscles and carry a box from a venue that has plenty to spare.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that it’s hugely unhelpful if hundreds of performers apply to multiple free organisations hoping to shop around the venues they’re offered. The additional paperwork of allocating shows to venues knowing there is only a one in two or three chance they will accept the slot and then having to fill slots and allocate acts again is not helpful. Our artistic directors work very hard already (and are volunteers, members of the collective like everyone else). Secondly we believe Free should mean Free. Not just free to audience members to get in but also free to performers. Several organisations promote themselves as “Free” when they in fact charge performers – sometimes thousands of pounds – for a space. We are the original Free Fringe and we are really free. The public know about us and we don’t want people confusing us with any of the others.

Yes, as long as you are not billed on any of the promotional material it’s not a problem.

Because we do not want to be confused with other fringe organisations who are claiming to be free but charge performers, that includes the free/PWYW (Pay What you Want) but also buy a ticket in advance model. You are more than welcome to be featured in shows that are on the paid fringe e.g Underbelly, Pleasance etc.

If you want to be in the Big Fringe brochure you can follow links – here. It’s not compulsory to be in the program and it isn’t cheap but a lot of acts like to do so. When filling in your information you must state ‘PBH's Free Fringe’ in the group section.

That depends. Every PBH venue has a performance space, a basic PA, 2 microphones with stands and backdrops plus the lights that are in the venue. All venues are different and some may have a raised stage or fancier lights but that is quite rare and depends on if the venue have it already. If you are 100% sure that your show needs a backstage area and mixed lighting states you may find applying to the paid fringe more beneficial. Sometimes all the acts at one venue may club together to buy an extra light or anything else they feel will improve the venue, often fans come in handy as rooms can get hot – that’s totally up to the acts and of course, you should run it by the venue in case they have a problem with it. For more info on all our venues you can see past show reports – here.

No but you can tell us in your application things you would like from your space. We do our best to program the right show into the right venue, we want the best for everyone and know what works where – so trust us.

That’s up to you. Some helpful links can be found here – there are also Facebook groups.

Always get the venues permission before you put posters on walls, some venues do not allow posters from other venues on the walls, even if you are all with the free fringe. All free fringe posters and flyers must have the Free Fringe logo, including the QR code for our Free Fringe App, in its original colours, on both sides of your flyers and on your posters. And when you are flyering always offer the Wee Blue Book.

The full performance dates this year will be mentioned in the top left of the website when they are announced. Please note that not all PBH venues are open on the last Sunday of the fringe and you will be told if this applies to you on you offer. When booking your transport/accommodation please remember that venue set up will be the day before it starts and breakdown will be on the final day or the Monday after. We do ask venue captains who was present and contributed.

Yes. If you are applying for an in-person show and want to stream it or potentially make a filmed version as well, make a separate application for virtual and answer the relevant questions, quoting your in-person show number.