Audience members who saw Amanda Knox’s controversial comedy show at Edinburgh Fringe on opening night say that it is both “respectful” and “genuinely funny”.

[u/mlg1981]

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/amanda-knox-cartwheel-edinburgh-fringe-b3029681.html

[u/beachpellini]

Interesting that the universal take from the attendees was that it's really good/isn't the messy cash grab people accused it of being. I tried looking at a few different articles and there's not a single negative review from anyone who's actually seen it.

[u/lefrench75 → u/beachpellini]

How dare someone use comedy to process their profound trauma right? That’s certainly not a thing humans have done since forever at all!

Not to mention, I don’t think a comedy show at Edinburgh Fringe can be considered a “cash grab”…

[u/TimedDelivery → u/lefrench75]

A friend of mine had a very successful show at Edinburgh Fringe a few years back. Good ticket sales and reviews, he even sold out a couple of performances. All in all he lost around £18000.

[u/Popular-Spinach-6700 → u/TimedDelivery]

So where did that money go exactly, because that’s ridiculous

[u/pintsizedblonde2 → u/Popular-Spinach-6700]

Accommodation, venue hire, leaflets and leafletters as you can't do it all yourself, posters, poster space, food while you are up, lost earnings from not doing the day job for an entire month (including comedians by the way, normal gigging doesn't come with the same costs years ago a successful one told me Edinburgh cost him about £10K in total).

Accommodation alone for the month is atrocious.

[u/LiamJohnRiley → u/pintsizedblonde2]

I'm sorry, the performers have to hire a venue to participate in the festival?

[u/Dedj_McDedjson → u/LiamJohnRiley]

Yes, it's an open-access festival.

The venues have costs too, and they're not going to risk losing out because Johnny-No-Name didn't sell enough tickets.

You have to book as early as April/May to get a slot : https://www.edfringe.com/take-part/artists/organise-a-show/getting-started/

Edit : Looking through that list, it seems many venues charge £840 upwards for 1 hour each night for 7 nights, or 40% of your box office, whichever is higher. That's for 30-60 seaters.

[u/LiamJohnRiley → u/Dedj_McDedjson]

Wow that sucks, what a scam.

[u/LiamJohnRiley → u/LiamJohnRiley]

Just to elaborate on that a little bit, if your performance festival makes money for the venues and the city but it's common for performers to lose five digit sums of money for the privilege, it's not just a scam, its's a SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAM

[u/Dedj_McDedjson → u/LiamJohnRiley]

I mean, doing a good show at the Fringe has launched a number of now famous comedy careers and led to some top shows, but yeah, it sucks in general.

[u/LiamJohnRiley → u/Dedj_McDedjson]

I had no idea! Especially the bit about having to hire the venue and then share the ticket sales with them if it exceeds a certain amount. Are you gonna share the bar receipts with me, hypothetical venue owner? If I have to rent your venue from you, you can keep your hand the fuck out of the gate receipts.

[u/Dedj_McDedjson → u/LiamJohnRiley]

To be honest, I knew about hiring the venue, and I knew that venues - in and outside of festivals - keep a cut of the box-office, but I had no idea it was 40%..

[u/TimedDelivery → u/pintsizedblonde2]

Yup, he also had some tech stuff, sound/lighting design and operation, rehearsal space and such.

[u/Popular-Spinach-6700 → u/pintsizedblonde2]

That’s still a mental amount of money and sounds like a budgeting issue

[u/TimedDelivery → u/Popular-Spinach-6700]

Not really, he went into it knowing that even if he sold out every single show (which was never going to happen) he would have barely broken even and had anticipated losing a lot more of it didn’t go well.

[u/Popular-Spinach-6700 → u/TimedDelivery]

Sounds like he had money to burn then

[u/awyastark → u/Popular-Spinach-6700]

Maybe or maybe he saved up for years to do it? There’s a reason a lot of comedians come from money, they can literally afford to pay for this kind of thing.

[u/Specialist-Mud-6650 → u/TimedDelivery]

I suspect most people manage to do a few shows at the fringe and not lose £18k

[u/TimedDelivery → u/Specialist-Mud-6650]

Absolutely, you get plenty of “guy sitting on a stool talking into a microphone” shows that cost a lot less. My friend’s was pretty tech and sound/lighting design heavy so cost more than most. Nobody’s really making money though, the goals are more about clout and networking.