Edinburgh Festival Fringe artist fund challenged for 'violation of open access principles'
Keep It Fringe has distributed £1 million in grants since 2023.
The founder of the Free Fringe has lodged a motion against a grant fund operated by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, claiming it goes against the organisation’s “level playing field ethos”.
In a movement put forward to the Fringe Society’s annual general meeting (AGM), Peter Buckley Hill said the Keep It Fringe fund, launched by a donation from Phoebe Waller-Bridge in 2023, was “biased”.
The fund, which has distributed £1 million to UK-based artists at the festival, has since been supported by a UK government grant.
Mr Buckley Hill wrote: “The custom and rule of the Edinburgh Fringe was: if you can get a venue, you can perform at the Fringe. The Fringe Office had no role in the selection of who performed and who did not. That was the venue providers' job.
“The playing field was never level: money always talks. But the principle of a Fringe is to keep the field as level as possible. You can bring your show. Once you have a venue, you're equal. Only the public can judge you. But this has changed since Covid.”
He added: “If Show X gets a £2,000 grant and you do not, you are at a big disadvantage. Even before you start. It’s biased against you and somebody has made that judgement.
“The Fringe Office was not put in place to discriminate in favour of one show and against another. It doesn’t have the mandate and it doesn’t have the expertise.”
The Fringe Society said funders would be “very unlikely to support investment without criteria” and that limiting its ability to distribute funding would lead to “greater inequality”.
The statement said: “The Fringe Society’s aim is to ensure limited funding for culture is directed to the Fringe by any means possible, and for the Fringe Society to use its fundraising skills and capacity to support all artists and venues who take part.”
The body added: “The Fringe Society acts, in all these instances, as an impartial, arms-length administrator of the available grants. In each case it puts in place rigorous principles, signed off by the relevant funder, to ensure that the society itself is not making artistic or other subjective assessments of requests for support.”
The AGM will take place on Tuesday.
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