You’ve invested thousands. Now you need to know what’s coming back.
Artists at the Edinburgh Fringe will spend anywhere from £2,000 up to £10,000 on their festival runs
With complex deals with your venue to navigate, and ticket sales being fickle it can be difficult to know what to expect in your best or worst case scenario.
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We know because we’ve been there and spent hours stressing over what our ticket sales needed to be, and the question of whether it was even possible to breakeven.
So we’ve assembled a toolkit to help artists like you understand all these questions and more, quickly and easily. Informed by our 10 years of touring experience.
To get started with the toolkit all you need to know is:
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Your venue capacity
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How many performances
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Your ticket prices
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If you have a guarantee to pay the venue, how much is it
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How much you’ve spent
Understand your deal
Each venue at the festival offers different deals but there are 2 kinds that are most common. These are: Box Office Split: Usually around 60% of the Box Office revenue goes to the artist and the remaining 40% goes to the venue. Box Office Split against a Guarantee : This is where the venue will take a guarantee amount, sometimes called a minimum theatre fee, OR 40% of the total Box Office revenue whichever is greater.
Plan for additional charges and fees
This is important! Your Box Office share will be calculated AFTER deductions are made for a number of things. This often includes: 4% of your Gross Box office paid to PRS for the use of music (unless its original music) Box Office fees, these are sometimes charged as a percentage, often around 1.5% or as a flat fee per ticket, eg £1.50 per ticket. Fringe Box Office fees: only charged on tickets purchased through the EdFringe box office rather than directly with the venue. This is usually a flat fee per ticket. Additional costs to the venue: Some venues might charge you for print and poster sites, technicians, use of special equipment like microphones or additional cables. Sometimes these are called Contra costs. Most venues are very clear about this and include what these costs might be if you incur them within their contracts. Usually these costs are deducted from the box office revenue after the box office %.
Calculate your average ticket price
Not everyone will be buying a full price ticket to your show, you may have concession rates, discounts and promocodes, group or mutli-ticket deals. This effects the average price of your ticket and can make projecting your income more complex. Using your average ticket price to project your income will make it a more accurate and conservative estimate. Even £1 or £2 per ticket difference can make a big impact on your total numbers. and we’re here to help you get on top of your ticket sales, your budget and your financial position. So after all of that, there might be less in the box office revenue pot for your split, or to pay towards your guarantee than you might have expected.
Keep track of your spending
It goes without saying that you need to know how much money you’ve invested into your Edinburgh Fringe run. Don’t be scared to get a hold of the numbers - it’s better to know that worry. Keep track of your spending in a spreadsheet, or even as a list in your phone, whatever works for you: find out how much you’ve spent.
Get the tool
Edinburgh Fringe Ticket Projection Toolkit
We've taken our 10 years of touring and producing experience, turned into a simple financial planning tool.
How to use it
Step 1
Input your information from your venue deal and how much you've spent so far. If your tickets are on sale, input your most up-to-date sales report too.
Step 2
See your headlines in the dashboard instantly. With sections for before the festival season and during.
Step 3
Explore your ticket projections in more depth and use the tool to plan for your next festival run (it works for any festival or venue with similar deals)
" Made complicated ticket projections and budgeting so simple, saved me hours!! Plus it gave me confidence I knew what to expect, in best and worst case. I'm going to use for every deal I get now. "
Claire Leith - Performance Artist
Literally saved me from insanity. Incredibly useful as a self producing artist, or producers who need a tool to get this done quickly and reliably.
Aled Rosser - Independant Producer
Testimonials
Our story
It went wrong before it went right...
4 years ago we cancelled an Edinburgh Fringe run half way through. It was the best decision we ever made.
About 4 years ago we were at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with a show. It was a major flop. We had dutifully made the budget, estimating a worst-case scenario of ticket sales being less than 10% and in reality we didn't scrape that in the first 14 shows.
We had invested thousands of our savings into this festival season. So what did we do? Made the first version of this tool and I called it 'THE LIFE RAFT'
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The numbers were simple in the end. We didn't have enough shows left to make our money back. Our creative hearts broke as it felt like failure; but with our producer hat on understood: this is a simple choice. Our last show had to be that day.
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The money we saved by going home we reinvested into the company, and it a major lesson in financial literacy. Now 4 years later we are still here stronger, more ambitious and still making extraordinary work.
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There's always going to be risk, but with the right tools you know how to be bold.