A 60-minute Fringe variety show and fundraiser, AJ Bell Fringe on Friday, has its first line up announced by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. This new digital event, supported by Manchester based investment platform company AJ Bell, will stream every Friday from 07 to 28 August during the Fringe when it will showcase a snapshot of the festival across a range of genres, including comedy, cabaret, dance and music. Each show will feature nine different acts and will go out live at 9pm, with tickets costing £9, that is £1 less than the cost of the average Fringe ticket.
AJ Bell Fringe on Friday is a key part of the FringeMakers campaign, a Fringe-wide fundraising initiative that has been developed in partnership with Crowdfunder. This new, zero-fee platform is designed to help Fringe artists and venues raise vital funds in the absence of a physical festival in 2020. Artists and venues keep 100% of the proceeds from tickets they sell, plus any donations made to their own campaigns. Several artist and venue fundraising campaigns are already underway, with more to follow over the coming weeks.
AJ Bell Chief Executive, Andy Bell, said, “The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been an iconic arts and cultural event that gives established and emerging artists the opportunity to showcase their talents and hone their performances. It has always been a truly inclusive celebration of creativity, arts and culture that is famous around the world. COVID-19 has dealt a hammer blow to the entire sector but as the saying goes – the show must go on…”
The broadcast is going ahead thanks to Scotland-based cultural producers Lucky Cat and Michael Fraser, and production company Inner Ear. The first show will be hosted by Suzi Ruffell, with Nigel Ng, Jayde Adams and Courtney Act also confirmed to host later editions.
Further acts confirmed so far include Abandoman, Magical Bones, Daniel Sloss, Fern Brady, Briefs, Bernie Dieter, Craig Hill, Michael Odewale and Sadia Azmat. The full line-up for each show will be announced the Wednesday before the Friday broadcast.
Individual Fringe artists and venues can create their own a page on the dedicated FringeMakers platform, via the crowd fund part of the Fringe website. All participants can set their own rewards for donation in addition to selling access to the AJ Bell Fringe on Friday broadcast with participants keeping 100% of the ticket cost sold from their page.
Tickets can be bought for each AJ Bell Fringe on Friday show through individual artist and venue fundraising pages. Tickets are also available from the Fringe Society, with all money raised going towards a central artist and venue recovery fund, which has already been boosted with the support of AJ Bell. Funds will be circulated to artists and venues at the end of this year’s festival, with an independent panel deciding on how the money is distributed.
Crowdfunder have waived all fees for the project and are providing participants with tailored support to enable them to raise as much money as possible during the month of August.
Full details on FringeMakers website
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 