bathfringe’s blog

So, we got to the end of it, not without a few mishaps on the way (but most of them nothing really do with the festival); we’ve got some sleep, done the counting-the-money bit, i’ve been to Glastonbury, it’s time to get out and go see what our other favourite festivals are like this time round, who’s new, and start thinking about next year. It’s the second burst of big fun in this job, really, after the excitement of the Fringe itself.

We’ve paid the bills, pretty much - we’re still chasing some people who owe US money - and it looks as though we’ve done OK: in fact we’d have been in profit if the council hadn’t cut our core funding completely; so instead we’re having to spend a chunk of our reserves, our shoebox under the bed of ‘rainy day’ money that would ensure the continuity of the festival and that people who’d be really clobbered got paid if we went down badly (failing green-field festivals please note!). Yes, the Council are still making it more difficult for us to survive, not content with wasting time before the festival (time that should have been spent promoting events) in, um, “discussions” with them, and associated bureaucracy... and still no money. Can you believe they called an important ‘Future of the Fringe’ meeting the day the festival opened? How useful is that going to be, really? We always said that the funding cut was going to put future festivals, not this year’s, into jeopardy and that’s the way it’s still looking.

Well if you looked, you could already see the squeeze on our money and our time this year. The thing this year’s festival fell down on most was marketing, as it happens: no-one gives us much money to spend on that, and we have to compensate with time (which was squeezed), volunteers (a bit thin on the ground) and clever ideas (where?). Some great shows (Sweet Billy Pilgrim; the Birdman The Baron & The Bat; Doreen Thobekile; plenty more) had pathetic audiences, whilst the people with all the marketing budget, staff and time, they were getting crowds for frankly unimaginative fare packaged as something exciting. 

It all comes round to the biggest of all Fringe problems: how do you get (enough) people to come and see something they haven’t heard of that they have no good way of knowing whether they’d like it? I say ‘enough’ people ‘cos some people are just up for it anyway, but they’re quite a small number in a small city and a small festival like ours. OK it’s what we’re going to have to spend some more time and more thoughts on... any ideas, join in the discussion. Go on, start the discussion, i dare you...

 

But anyway, to end on an up, here are my favourite shows of Fringe ‘08. Any comments welcome as ever.

• Kilter: On a beautiful sunny day, pedalling off down that lovely cycle track chatting with the characters as you go... and then the steam train pulls out at the end. A dream...

• Thomas Truax: A star. A-mazing.

• Barry Cryer: Making us laugh to jokes that are older than even he is.

• Boom Stage: Stunning quality of young local bands; lovely vibe (and Adele’s lovely garden)

• Bedlam Sunday, three of the classiest street acts out

• Top Cats: Doing ‘Lollipop’

• Martin Newell: I would say “he should be on telly,” but i don’t watch telly and it’d probably spoil him. But he should be paid the sort of money that people who are on telly get for being so much worse than he is. That ‘House in France’ poem, Bath needs that kind of cutting wit more often

• The Birdman The Baron & The Bat: utterly enchanting in a non-cosy sort of way

• Sweet Billy Pilgrim: I love ‘em anyway. One day a few more of you will. They’re headlining something at the Royal Opera House, fer fuxxake; isn’t the Spiegeltent more fun than that?

• In fact, the Spiegeltent anyway: best one we’ve had by a country mile.

 

Wanna help the Fringe and win free tickets for next year?

 

In order to help us look at modifications for Fringe 2009 (we change a little every year), in order to fully assess what just happened in ’08, we need your feedback (and, just as importantly, some of the organisations who give us money would like to know a bit more about who you all are). We’ve put up a little questionnaire on surveymonkey.com; it’s only about 20 questions so it won’t take you very long (unless you want to write us an epistle in the comments box) and it can be utterly anonymous, of course.

 

We’re going to put all the names of people who haven’t been anonymous completing the questionnaire into a suitably fringey hat to select three winners of free Fringe ticket packages (eg. Spiegeltent passes or tickets): we don’t know exactly what yet because we haven’t planned the events yet...

 

And it really really helps us: so if you enjoyed the Fringe – or even if you didn’t, or not as much as you thought you should – get onto that website and tell us about it. It’s an easy way for you, the audience, to help shape your festival, and that’s not an offer you get every day.

 

Click Here to take survey

whoo, haven’t been here for a while, been busy

BUT the full Fringe programme is now up on our website

- that’s www.bathfringe.co.uk if you’re confused.

 

We’ve been having a hard time, had our council grant slashed dramatically, but decided to make our best shot at another ace festival, it’s what we do and there didn’t seem to be any point not doing it

if you’re inclined to come, do, it might be a good idea: if you want us to continue giving you stuff that we gather you want to see and hear, we need to make an indubitable (and, indeed, financial) success this year

and even if you want us to change, come to something and come back and comment here, don’t wait for someone else to do it ‘for you’ ...

 

we reckon it’s particularly worth looking at:
• a bigger Spiegeltent than last year, with a great programme of music for absorbing and for dancing to (sometimes even at the same time) to match: Top Cats, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, DJ Derek... and comedy too

• also featuring a whole lot of the future’s coming stars from the southwest on afternoon gigs

(we’ll be putting up more info about some of the bigger events here on the web in coming weeks, hopefully linking up with their web presence and their regulars while we’re at it)

 

• a series of greenfield/tent gigs on Kensington Meadows including Jonah & The Wail & The Zen Hussies.

• TWO Fringe clubs, the official one at the Porter and some competition; details of the latter still to be revealed

• the opening of a new Bath venue, Burdall’s Yard, just off Cleveland Place/London Road

 

• and a bigger programme of visiting & local theatre & cabaret in small venues, including the Theatre Binge Student Theatre festival (oh, and lots more), especially with names that let you know you’re at a Fringe (what’s your favourite? have a look and come back and tell us).

It’s the heart of the Fringe phenomenon, and is re-asserting itself in Bath just when we need it most. Hooray!

 

• we’re also still doing free and outdoor stuff, tho’ we can’t afford to do so much without grant income: a Sunday in Saw Close, by the Theatre, where we were last year, will be the centre of it.

 

• and dozens of small crazy unpredictable and independent events all over the city... now that’s the idea...

did we really say we were going to do one of these a week?
drokk!

 

Had a lot to do, mostly responding to what i’m writing about now, as it happens:
...money!
Anyone in Britain will have heard plenty about Arts Funding over he last few weeks - sorry, here’s some more...

We’ve recently  found out that we didn’t get an Arts Council grant this year, even though we were hoping for one and put some serious work in on an application. We’re not a ‘regularly funded organisation’ (the ones you’ve maybe been reading about) which means we hadn’t been told we’d definitely get money; as it is, the message was “perfectly good ideas, guys, it’s just we don’t have enough money to support you this year”. No-one in Britain needs to be told, either, that (despite more money than was expected in the Arts Council allocation from Government, and despite promises not to pour any more of it into a black hole in East London) a lot of Arts Funding has been corralled by those extraordinary people who administer sports events, for a certain way-over-budget event in 2012.

What’s more of a wrench is that we’re staring down the barrel of a massive cut in what we get from the local council here in Bath: in big figures they were saying they were likely to give us about the same amount of money for the whole of the next three years as they did in total in 2007: ie. that cut us by two-thirds. If you compare that with what they gave us in 2006 it’s down to something like 28%.

OK, it's still possible it's not going to be that bad, we hear that not everyone in the council is happy with the suggestion, but we're going to get cut by a big chunk. Everyone's going to get cut and we're not a priority. Nothing like a priority. Not even like some other 'cultural' organisations you could name. We find out how bad it is soon. We'll tell you when we know - unless we've got complaining-fatigue by that point.

I’m not going to argue the reasons here: the council can give money to who it likes, they’ve got less of it over the years (and no it’s not because they gave it all to Thermae Bath Spa) and they’ve got priorities and protocols and targets and the like that tell them what to think.

People who live round here should be told that this puts at risk lots of stuff we have usually spent their money on: printing the programme that advertises things that everyone else puts on; giving money to the FAB Visual Arts programme (locally created free events in unusual places) when no-one else does; putting things on for free in public places; and running our office that makes all those things and a lot else happen when no-one else can be bothered. That includes paying our two “part-time” workers and some contracted help, so i expect i should declare an interest.

If the council wants to, they’re free to tell us that they don’t want to support that sort of thing; if you’re bothered by that, you have a vote and perhaps one of the parties could put arts & culture funding on their manifesto (this is supposed to be an arty city but it’s apparently more interested in shopping).

What this means is: anything free we put on this year for people in general (you guys) is going to be there because of our sponsors and supporters (not everyone thinks we’re doing it wrong); we’re going to try and do something on Kensington Meadows but it’s not going to have any seed money, so it’s likely to have a gate tax on it; and some things we charge for (like programme entry, which is waaay cheaper than Brighton, Buxton or Edinburgh) are going to have to go up a bit. And then probably a bit more. The money the council gives us will go an some very specific things they’ve selected: it’s all stuff we want to do, but it’s outside the remit of what we’ve been accustomed to put on for you. Priorities, you see...

Actually, this could mean in the long run is more fun.

• Council-sponsored art has never been known for - umm, how can we put this? - it’s never been known for taking the right kind of risks; we’re probably better without them breathing down our necks. At the moment, apart from Suited & Booted, the youth film crew, I can’t think of anything that I’ve been to from one of the other locally subsidised ‘agencies’ that I’ve enjoyed - and no, Cynthia, that’s not because I don’t like innovation, my tastes in experimental performance and abstract music are well leftfield of most people I know - it’s because they haven’t been any good.

• We’re still going to be doing stuff for free in the streets and elsewhere, that’s the way we like it and that’s the way it works best. Luckily our sponsors - and very probably the Arts Council in another year, and very probably some other institutions who like what we do and, even better, like the things we’re planning - can connect with that idea, even though they can’t get it to fill in a questionnaire.

• The things we want to develop for the future, the big ideas we’d really like to see, are way out of the budget range of things the council supports unless you happen to be Bath Festival, and some of them aren’t the sort of thing the Arts Council pays for without you already having a reputation for doing them - but there are other people who might take a punt on it earlier on. It’s the big, mad and one-off ideas that keep us interested, and they're as difficult, or as easy, as they’ve ever been. We’ve got reams of them, we suspect you’d really like to see them when they happen, and we’re going out to look for support for them in the country beyond the focus group where things are more interesting.

We only ever got involved in state funding because
• we were doing things that they said they wanted to happen
• and because there were other things they said they wanted to happen that we happened to think we were the best people to do.

We’re not looking to add to the increase of arts bureaucracies, we’re a Fringe and Fringe comes from the artists and the audiences rather than the bureaucrats.  

They’re probably doing us a favour.
It's just not the most obvious interpretation from here.

First step:

advert:

this year's Fringe Open Meeting

Wednesday January 30^th

8pm in The Love Lounge at the back of The Bell, Walcot Street, Bath

 

Have you got a show you want to put on in Fringe 2008?

Would you like to help other people with the practical side of arranging, running and publicising events?

Do you want to know more about how the Fringe Festival works?

Do you want the inside story on what we’re planning for 2008?

 

...then this is the meeting for you. See you there. If you can’t be there but would like to be involved in any of the above capacities, EMail us on admin@bathfringe.co.uk.

There will be further volunteer meetings nearer to festival time, but if you’re contemplating a show, now is the time to be thinking seriously about it: the programme deadline will be March 3^rd.

 

If you‘ve got a show, or even just an idea and a group of people to do it, we can provide some practical help including a list of venues for hire: please note that the Fringe doesn’t run any suitable venues itself (or we don’t at the moment, plans are afoot for future years). You might even find that someone else is planning something you can share resources with. We’ve also got a lot of experience and contacts in running events of all sorts and we are a good source of advice and information – if we haven’t tried something of the sort ourselves, it’s more than likely we know someone who has... And this meeting is definitely for you, it’s good to talk, as someone said (but that was an advert).

 

One of our best events of last year (Kilter’s ‘Remote Patrol’ in the Abbey Cemetery) first introduced themselves at last year’s open meeting: we’re looking forward to something (or things) else just as good this year.

 

Fringe Festival time is one part of the year where there are audiences, journalists, websites, media and the whole of the rest of the world looking at Bath to see what the city’s artistic community is up to: it’s the perfect time to get noticed... If you’re tempted, act now!

 

If you want to be involved with FAB Fringe Visual Arts this is not the meeting: see www.fringeartsbath.co.uk and note that the first and most crucial deadlines are January 16^th.

If you want us to put your band on this is not the meeting either: see www.bathfringe.co.uk/page.php?pageid=71 and note that most music is put on by Fringe participating venues, not the Fringe committee.

There are no details about the possible Walcot Nation/Independence Day event at the moment.

 

 

now the rest of it

 

The beginning of the year is the classic cue to tell you where we’re at in preparing for next year’s festival. Yes of course that’s what everyone else is doing; sorry. We tend to spend most of the year ‘living in the future’ (planning the next festival, not as exciting as it sounds), now it’s your turn

 

Spiegeltent:

probably!

We think we’ve got the money, between commercial sponsorship and other independent funding. The council might give us some ££ to help the daytime shows connect with more Bath communities (a nice idea), but that’s small change compared with the five figure sums we need to open the place (and that’s before paying any artists). Anyone else wanting to support Bath’s most prestigious venue, get in touch, it’s not too late!We hear that Komedia aren’t opening until much later in the year, so that gives us another good crack at the music-and-comedy mix that we’ve done in the tent before, it’ll be fun. Because we haven’t 100% confirmed the venue we haven’t been able to book anything definitively yet, tho’ we do have some ‘heavy pencils’ on stuff we thought too good to pass us by. Who said “no heavy pencilling”?

 

bedlam:

Something will happen, of course...

...But mostly we’re waiting on the outcome of an Arts Council application which will allow us to set up a collaboration between some local performers and the fearless street provocateurs Cacahuète (remember their ‘Mama’s Funeral’ procession at Walcot Nation Day years ago?) as well as put on something extremely good looking in SawClose one evening. Some of the friends and supporters who helped with last year’s event there (the Gascoyne Place boys and some nice people in the Theatre Royal) are up for it again, and someone maybe even had a sniff of some money ... We set that event up with the idea that it should be continuing and could be in part supported by the people round there who stand most chance of benefiting, and so far this seems to be what’s happening.

If you read the arts pages, you’ll be aware that lots of organisations are losing ‘their’ Arts Council grants; this of course means that nobody can be certain of support from that direction, but the money we were applying for wasn’t part of that ‘pot’, and we’re still optimistic. We’d have to be, we wouldn’t still be doing this if we weren’t very optimistic...

There are also grant applications pending and in process for other outdoor & site-specific performances.

 

Kensington Meadows:

Again, if we get the money!

We’re hoping to make Kensington a second ‘pole’ of the festival for the last week/weekend, after bedlam (and after the Spiegeltent has closed). Depending on the same Arts Council grant, and, even then, depending if we can afford them (it’s looking more expensive than we originally thought), we’re hoping to get No Fit State Circus back, with their first all-new show in several years. Bath Fringe’s association with No Fit goes back years to when GB ‘New Circus’ was the new thing, and, frankly, they’re the only people in Britain still doing it at all consistently and still taking it forward - the other subsidised tented companies really haven’t proved themselves, to put it mildly. We think their new show will be sufficiently different to bring in people who like conventional circus along with people who like an edgy performance experience, and we hope to use this precedent to establish a regular audience for some of the stranger tent-able (that’s not like tentative) or outdoor shows that we see in Europe in the future, groups and acts we know you people would like, but we haven’t had a place to put them before.

 

If we get that money we can also use some of the same infrastructure (tents, toilets, power, fences) as the core for a community festival afternoon down there, to connect up some of the energies what went into past Walcot Independence events with some of the ‘community’ angles and youth projects we’ve been doing over the last few years. Whether it comes out as an event like Walcot Independence Day or not (it’s going to be different, it’s going have to have a set gate charge on it this year, for a start) isn’t really our decision, it depends who wants to get involved, and that’s something for the Walcot Independence massive to talk about when we know if the money has come through - and if it doesn’t, whether anyone has any other ideas. Someone is supposed to be setting up another forum for that, if you want to be involved and informed, go to http://www.bathfringe.co.uk/page.php?pageid=41 where there’s more info and a sign-up section.

 

Outside of all that, we are hoping to drum up more enthusiasm for more theatrical performances in more places (halls, pubs, schools) - other festivals can make it happen, and Bath has many more rooms that could be used than currently are - tho’ this one may turn out to be more of a long-term plan than something that’s going to come upon us suddenly in 2008.

...ideas?

 

The FAB Fringe Visual Arts group have the usual slew of good new ideas (cutprice but not sellout or cheapskate) for 2008, but that’s their story to tell you - have a look at http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk

 

And of course there’s the ‘other’ festival, ‘The Bath Festival’ to most of us, whose grant process doesn’t come in synchronised with everyone else’s, so we won’t be able to see how well they’ve kept up their council (and Arts Council etc., etc.) support in comparison. One thing you will notice if you get information from both organisations is that Bath Festival have decided to move their dates to the same ones as ours - we moved ours a week out-of-sync about a decade ago, giving Bath a three-week festival and the audience the opportunity to go to events in both. When Bath Festival’s budgets, grants and turnover dwarf ours something like tenfold (haven’t done the sums recently), we’re worried about this, of course; we can’t help feeling we’re going to lose out. Some accuse us of being paranoid, but when you’re small, you have to look out for yourself, no-one else is going to. Keep an eye on this site and our website for trailers of what we’ve got on, and don’t go buying into too many from the other team until you see what we’ve got to offer, or you may end up missing something you’ll regret...

 

if you want to help us, comment or otherwise pass this around your online friends

that way we get more people noticing we’re here

thanks

bathfringe christmas gig
kensington wine warehouse
this friday 21st (winter solstice night)
The Duckworths
The Mighty Peas
Man Overboard
old new borrowed & blue if ever there was a collection thereof
£5
8.30-12
see ya
(excuses accepted from people in the ents biz working that night)

bathfringe is

 

26

likes partying

smart intelligent groovy unconventional freaky stylish farout alternative

(a little...)

...and dead sexy

 

still not got a proper job

[but does one?]

 

 

this page is here for us and you to chat

to say things to ask things you wouldn’t use the other ways (EMail, phone, letter) to do

(and hopefully get answers)

those other methods are more appropriate for saying some things

like: “I want to marry you”

“Can you put my band on?”

“Can I have a stall at your festival?”

“WHY won’t you put my band on?”

It’s possible we might not answer irrelevant or too-personal questions posted here...

Like i’m not going to say “we’re not going to book you because we think you’re crap” online, it wouldn’t be fair. Or nice. Or even true?

 

and of course we hope to meet more people this way

and communicate with more people

isn’t that why you joined?

 

the person writing this lives in Bath and works on the festival (note i didn’t say “works for” the festival)

it might not always be the same person writing here

but obviously it’s a bit of an inside job

sometimes it’s be nice - if you’re posting - if you say whether you’re from Bath, whether you go to the festival, or might, what your interest is: it might make it easier for people reading it. I know that’s not always the way online, but this is more of a public than a private conversation. And OK, that stuff might be on your profile already...

 

You might have noticed (or you’ll know it if you got an EMail from us about this) that this isn’t the only place we’ve opened an identity. So many people are on so many different networks we thought we’d better hang out on a few - at least until we work out where everyone actually is. We’ve tried several as well as the Big 2 ‘cos some of the others are bigger in non-English-speaking countries, and we like to talk to people there too. If there’s really no-one using one of these in 6 months or whatever, the time of the next festival, we might drop out of sight or switch the service elsewhere.

At the moment we’re on:

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6423804397

myspace: http://myspace.com/bathfringe

blogger: http://bathfringe.blogspot.com

livejournal: http://bathfringe.livejournal.com/

xanga: http://www.xanga.com/bathfringe

 

We’re also on:

Perfspot [http://perfspot.com]

Passado [http://www.passado.com]

Orkut [http://www.orkut.com – or via google]

...but as far as I understand those so far, you have to log on and search to find us. If i discover otherwise, i’ll post it here too.

 

As far as i understand it, we have a GROUP on all of those (and on any other that will let us). The sites all work differently, but you’ll understand the one you’re on, i’m sure.

 

IF I’VE MADE ANY BIG MISTAKES, OF COURSE IT WOULD BE NICE TO BE TOLD ;-)

 

We’re also also on:

flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bathfringe

join the group if you’ve got pictures of the Fringe

 

 

To start with we’re just going to post the same stuff on all of them, the same info and core writings. Obviously the discussions might be different, they’ll get different responses and different things might get said. Can’t help that, and it’ll make it more interesting for us, won’t it?

Obviously it’s not going to be the same stuff as you’d get on the website

(what would be the point?)

This way you might get to find out some things before other people do (some people like that)

dunno

not sure how it’s going to work yet

we’d better use it and find out

 

For the moment we’re going to write every week or thereabouts

but maybe not on the same day. And obviously that gets difficult at some times of year. And even the Fringe has a holiday sometimes.

If you’re worried about getting it all, that’s what 'subscribe' and RSS are for.

 

If you drop in here, you will be able to pick up some of our ideas, things we’re trying to make happen

(you might have an opinion, you might even be able to help with them).

Maybe you’ll hear some moaning when it’s not going right.

 

We can probably talk about things that aren’t fixed yet

- doesn’t have to be true or set-in-stone as much, i guess -

don’t believe it till you see it on www.bathfringe.co.uk

 

We’ll certainly be sending messages to people on here when there’s things you really have to know (just like we send EMails to people whose addresses we have). There’s a chance there might be more here, depends which is easier, really, or which people respond to.

 

 

so that’s enough introduction

i always explain too much

 

 

Next year’s festival runs from Friday May 23 to Sunday June 8

Too much is still in the application stage at the moment to be very specific

We expect to have our Spiegeltent again (maybe another different one).

We’re hoping to do some more high-profile Street Theatre in town again, and we reckon the weather will be better.

We’re going to try and do stuff on Kensington Meadows, ‘cos we like it out there, but we’re not sure what, ‘cos we’re not sure what we can afford to do yet. That’s always the way when you’re little like us.

 

 

SORRY: THERE ARE NO PICTURES UP YET

THEY’RE ALL ON THE flickr PAGES

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bathfringe

 

if we can link properly from here

or when i get the time otherwise

(soon!)

they’ll be here too

 

WHOO! ENOUGH!!