The Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest festival on the planet (Guinness Book of World Records) attracting high quality and innovative performances from the world’s most exciting talent, alongside established household names.

Images courtesy of the Guardian - ‘A Pleasance Day’

The Pleasance

Over 25 years, the Pleasance has grown into the largest and most highly respected venue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with an international profile and a network of alumni that reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary culture. The Pleasance is on its own the
single largest festival on the planet.

Split between two venues, the Pleasance Courtyard and the Pleasance Dome offer
twenty-one performance spaces, ranging in size from 50 to 740 seats, with nine on-site cafes and bars attracting crowds to the all-day buzz and legendary atmosphere from mid-morning to 4am throughout August.

As well as attracting big names such as Alan Rickman, Frank Skinner and Paul Merton, the Pleasance is also the most popular venue for up-and-coming artists and companies.
The programme has included a veritable hall of fame:

Peter Kay, Timothy West, Stephen Fry, Jo Brand, David Baddiel, Al Murray, Steven Berkoff,
Richard Whitely, Cheek by Jowl, Nicholas Parsons, Julian Clary, The Mighty Boosh,
Bill Bailey, Ross Noble, Frankie Boyle, Ennio Marchetto, Steve Coogan, Russell Brand,
Nichola McAuliffe, The Reduced Shakespeare Company, La Feura dels Baus, Eleanor Bron, David Strassman, Catherine Tate, Michael McIntyre, Omid Djalili and The League of Gentleman.

In 2008, shows at the Pleasance were nominated for 35 awards including Fringe 1st, Total Theatre, if.comedy (formerly Perrier) and Stage Awards. In the past 25 years the
Pleasance has hosted the Perrier / if.comedy award winner 12 times.

In 2009, the Pleasance celebrated its 25th Festival, which provides a unique
opportunity for sponsorship to feature in the increased publicity surrounding the
Pleasance this year.

The Pleasance is a registered charity, a not-for-profit organisation dedication to
providing a platform for new theatre companies, new artists and new ideas.

Pleasance Stats

Total number of tickets sold in 2008
425,000
Total number of shows
225

Total number of performances
4,867

Increase in audience 2007 - 2008
20%

Audience origins:
59% Scotland
30% Rest of UK
11% Overseas

Audience ages
71% Under 35

Social grouping
84% ABC1 earners – spending power in excess of £70million

Even split between female/male

70% of tickets are sold online

The Pleasance Courtyard

The Pleasance Courtyard houses fifteen performance spaces, six bars and three cafes positioned around a busy cobbled courtyard attracting over 500,000 visitors. For many people, the Pleasance Courtyard IS the Fringe!

‘The Pleasance Courtyard is the place to meet people. Friendly,
unpretentious and unthreatening with an unwritten rule that the
recognisable can be as private or as public as they wish.’
The Stage

‘The best of all possible worlds.’
The Observer

‘This is where Glastonbury meets the country pub and drinks the bar dry’
The Times

The Pleasance is the only venue to offer the true ‘Fringe Day Out’ and few Fringe goers leave Edinburgh without at least one visit, regardless of whether they buy tickets for Pleasance shows.

The Pleasance Dome

The six performance spaces at the Pleasance Dome surround a palm court and the largest festival mural in Edinburgh. After hours, the Pleasance Dome offers the festival nightlife a place to hang out with live music from midnight until 5am; also home to the infamous Brooke’s Club.

The added bonus at the Pleasance is that you might just find yourself rubbing shoulders with the mega-stars. Anyone from Sean Connery or Alan Rickman to Billy Connolly or Judi Dench are regulars – queuing up for a show alongside the everyday punter.

Since the Pleasance Dome opened as a Fringe venue in 2000, it has inspired the growth of other venues in Bristo Square, now the hub of the Edinburgh Fringe.

The infamous Brooke’s Club in the Pleasance Dome - an exclusive performers and members club which is frequented by the fabulous and the famous throughout the festival.

Brooke's Club

With over 200 productions in the Pleasance programme each year, there will be as many as 1,500 performers, producers, directors and supporting crew connected to the venue. They will all share the much sought after membership of ‘Brooke’s Club’, for performers and press, situated at the centre of the Pleasance Dome. Other members will include press, promoters, agents and talent spotters.

‘More exclusive is Brookes Bar situated in the Pleasance Dome ... But don’t just turn up expecting to get in. Admission is by invitation only . . . unless you’re a particularly experienced ligger.’
The Scotsman

Media Opportunities

Alan Rickman being interviewed for BBC Culture show, which produces three episodes at the Pleasance Courtyard, shown to a combined national audience of 8 million, on six broadcasts during the festival (2008 figures)

From Breakfast TV to Radio 4 to CBBC’s Newsround, the media opportunities are there for the taking. The Pleasance Courtyard has become synonymous with the Fringe and therefore tends to feature in most TV coverage.

For many years, the Pleasance Courtyard has been the hub of the BBC’s coverage and broadcasts, with shows including Just a Minute, Loose Ends, The Now Show and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Each year BBC 2’s Culture Show broadcasts from the Pleasance three times to a total of 8 million viewers during the festival. The BBC are booked to return in 2009.

‘You can’t move in Edinburgh for camera crews… in the Pleasance Courtyard all you need to do to get on the telly is stand in a queue. Scarcely a round gets bought without a comedian being interviewed.’ The Herald

Other coverage has included BBC Scotland (Reporting Scotland), STV News, Sky News, BBC Breakfast News, STV’s Scotland Today, Channel 4, Newsround and even Al Jazeera.
Features in national papers and on national radio give the venue more coverage than any other. In 2005, the Pleasance press office logged over 2,500 press requests throughout August.