As the dust settles on another Edinburgh Fringe and I start to sneeze due to allergies or delayed lurgy, I will now write a summary of the fringe that was for August 2025. Disclaimer: This starts off fairly negative, but it gets better.
Similar to last year, I arrived in Edinburgh bleary-eyed, getting off the sleeper train at 7.30am the day before my show was due to begin. Also, with parallels to last year, I got little sleep on the train and began the fringe feeling exhausted. Thankfully, I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep on there this time, so I saved myself £200 on a cabin and opted for a seat.
I also arrived feeling grossly underprepared for what was in front of me. I did not feel the new material was yet ready for public consumption due to half of it being written barely two weeks before the start of the fringe, and my limited number of previews gave me few chances to refine it. In my biggest fringe venue ever, with my most expensive ticket prices, this is not a position I would ever choose to be in.
Nevertheless, it was the position I found myself in for reasons I am not entirely sure of. It was partly due to the time this year spent editing podcasts, partly down to the day job cutting into ever-more portions of my free time, partly due to laziness, and partly due to me needing the pressure of a deadline to actually write anything. I never want to arrive feeling so unprepared again, but strongly suspect it is possible.
Edinburgh Fringe costs
The one factor to dominate the headlines for Edinburgh in August and plague performers’ minds was the genius decision to book Oasis for three dates in the city, slap-bang in the first half of the month. Just the biggest musical event of the last two decades. What could go wrong?
Well, there is no question that the Oasis gigs led to a spike in accommodation prices. My fairly basic student digs in Musselburgh were £100 more expensive than last year. I have heard from other performers that their accommodation providers were offering to pay them £300 to find somewhere else to stay on the three nights that Oasis were in town, so they could rake in more cash from fans. I was not offered this deal and would have rejected it, as the chances of finding anywhere to stay in Edinburgh for £300 for three nights are hugely unrealistic
The other side of these gigs was taking away tens of thousands of hotel or B&B rooms from genuine fringe punters, with Oasis fans less likely to go and see as many shows around town due to the sheer cost of being there in the first place.
However, it is hugely naive to pin the problems with costs at Edinburgh Fringe on Oasis. The issues with costs have been building up for several years. Case in point: in 2019, I paid £600 to rent a room for the month in a flat about a mile out of town. In 2025, for a similar arrangement, you are looking to pay at least £1,800, if not higher. The costs are not sustainable, and fringe veterans are already being priced out of coming to the Scottish capital for August. If it weren’t for the fact that I have a full-time day job to fund my fringe activities, I wouldn’t be able to afford to go up either.
These cost issues need to be urgently addressed to avoid the fringe becoming a beige soup of ex-public school children funded by their parents and shows put on by the big agencies that fleece their acts and venue staff. In fact, Edinburgh Fringe has largely become this already. Things need to change. But they won’t. And in 12 months, I expect I will be trotting out these same lines again.
To clarify, I am state school educated, self-financed, have no agent, no production company behind me, and will be getting zero inheritance from anyone in my family. The deck is indeed stacked against me. But somehow, I continue to thrive at Edinburgh Fringe as you will learn below.
Show time: Where things get positive
Okay, I have laid on the negativity pretty thickly so far. This is the section where things get more positive. After the paragraph below, anyway.
In the three or four months leading up to August, I was getting increasingly concerned at how far behind my ticket sales were compared with 2024. I felt a pang of pain every time I checked the sales figures to see them stubbornly stuck. I remember checking one evening, walking home from Stroud train station to see that the sales numbers had actually gone down. I knew the show worked amazingly well at midday in previous years, but was 11.45am too early? And just what effect would Oasis have on my audience numbers.
I was worried that this would be a tough August. And it was. In fact, I have never known a quieter opening weekend of Edinburgh Fringe. I also never normally need anyone to flyer for me every day. However, I am pleased to report that this year was up there with my best-ever Edinburgh runs.
While it was my most expensive Edinburgh Fringe ever — with estimated total costs around £3,000 due to rising accommodation prices, extra board advertising (that probably wasn’t worth it), and hiring daily flyerers — it also happened to be the year that I made the biggest profit from the festival. I also had a consistent run of quality shows, with only two flat ones throughout the month. My calculations suggest my profit could be higher than the show costs, which will have already been covered due to the nature of what a profit is. I should receive my settlement within the next month or so.
I was performing in The Stand, which is one of the best comedy venues in the world, where I saw Stewart Lee and Kevin Eldon both do shows at the first fringe I attended in 2010. It is the largest venue I have performed in for the full run. I had previously done several late-night shows in there, but a full-run has more weight to it. I was offered 11.45am time slot in the big room, or a slot around 4pm in a smaller room where I would have a better chance of selling out. It was a risk to take this venue and time-slot, but I am so glad I did, as I loved every second. Well, almost every second, excluding the flat shows.
Despite concerns about the material not being in a fit state, it started to click very quickly. Edits were required, bits needed to be removed, bits needed adding. I didn’t plan on bring the squid material back this year. But after a friend requested it at the show he was coming to, it came back with a vengeance and elevated the show to new heights.
Last year, I was keen to get another sold-out laurels Jpeg to add to my collection after five years away, and just about squeaked over the line. This year, I reduced the capacity of my venue from 130 to 80 for the quiz, as I thought that full capacity with people standing (provided I even got that many people in) would be too much. This made me effectively exempt from sold-out status. But it took the pressure off, removing my obsession with sales figures to ensure I was on track to reach the hallowed 95% to get that prestigious Jpeg that loads of other shows just slap on their posters regardless of how many tickets they actually sold.
My highest audience set a record of 80, with a few days in the 70s, and many in the mid to high 60s. My lowest audience was 21, with an overall average of 55 for the run. In a difficult year when many shows have been pulled due to no audience, I consider this to be a success. Also, the show with 21 was one of the performances I enjoyed the most, taking me back to my roots of having more time to piss around with the audience.
Ultimately, no one is entitled to have an audience for their show. You have to work hard to get one, and even that may not be enough. All you can ever do is play what is in front of you. Obviously, if there is no one in front of you, then that makes that harder.
A fringe of firsts
This was my tenth full-run at Edinburgh Fringe, plus a half-run in 2016. Despite having first visited Edinburgh Fringe 15 years ago, there were several new experiences this year. Auld Reekie always has a way of surprising me in August.
Firstly, I did my first ever corporate gig, and it went much better than expected. I was also sketched by an artist for the first time during my show. It was also the first time I performed a show on the last Monday of the Fringe, which I really enjoyed. Another thing was that it was the first time I have had a sign language interpreter signing my show, and it was at this performance where I also received my first ever five-star review. I’m sure there are other things I’ve forgotten, but it was also the first fringe run I have ever done where I haven’t bought a single packet of Strepsils. And I am pleased to report that my stomach mostly behaved itself for August.
It has been a tough, but great Edinburgh Fringe. The HTWAPQ magic is still going strong, 11 years after my first run, and there are no signs of that stopping. I really didn’t want to leave Edinburgh and have already started thinking ahead to next year’s show. Just 11 months to go. I just have to make sure I don’t leave it ten months before I do any writing next year.
Let’s hope Edinburgh City Council and the Fringe organisers pull their respective fingers out to make it cheaper for performers and punters to visit the city during August, while also keeping locals on side. Although I don’t hold much hope for this actually happening.