I do this every year… just in case I want to know the exact amount of money I wasted / someone looking into the Fringe wants to see how much they could be spending.
This year (2019) I did three shows. I’ve broken down the costs for going / living at the Fringe and then the cost of the shows themselves.
Aims
- Truth be told originally one of my aims was to break even. I planned on doing this by doing three shows (to spread the cost of living in Edinburgh) and also to hopefully make enough money to say I broke even. Sadly, I don’t think that’s possible anymore… but I am writing this pre-Fringe. Anything could happen up there.
- To get more people on my social following (twitter) / newsletter (I have just over 1000 at the moment)
- To get an agent.
- To get more touring opportunities.
- To eat healthily.
- To get laid.
Prep
- I wrote a show*.
- I did 35 previews over June / July (I’d say 26 were booked by me at regional festivals, and 8 were venues booking me to come down and do the whole or chunks of the show).
- I got Chris (Oxse) to design my flyers / posters (costs below).
- I designed a badge for the show (costs below… I’m going to stop typing that. All costs are listed below)
- I wrote a minute long pitch for flyering by recording myself saying stuff and editing it down.
- I monitored everything i did month-by-month and made a blog so you can breakdown all the tasks into bite-sized chunks. You can view that here.
- I created a press pack (see it here) and press release (see it here) for the show and sent it out to 116 industry / touring operators / venues around the country to invite them to come. I got this information by emailing media@edfringe.com around June 2019 (2 ish months before Edinburgh) and asked for an “Artists Prep Sheet”.
*This took me just over 14 months.
General Costs
Accommodation (from EdLets.com) | £1000 |
Train (up) | £77.50 |
Train (down, first class… because it was £10 extra) | £79.50 |
Total Costs – | £1,157 |
Show Costs –
Every Room Becomes A Panic Room When You Overthink Enough (my 4th solo show)
Sweet Venue Costs | press – £180 Show – £256.39 |
Ed Fringe program / app (for the full run) | £300 (early bird special) |
Marketing Materials (flyers) | £140 – 5,000 flyers. 100 posters |
Marketing Materials (badges) | £40 (Badgesandstickers) |
Performer Insurance | £0 (I have Equity) |
Props for the show | £208 |
Poster design costs (Chris Oxenbury) | £200 |
Total costs for everything – |
£876.39 (£41.73 per show – 21 shows) |
Compilation show 1
Sweet Venue Costs | press – £180 Show – £502.87 |
Ed Fringe program / app (for the full run) | £300 (early bird special) |
Marketing Materials (flyers) | £0 |
Performer Insurance | £0 (I have Equity) |
Props for the show | £0 |
Poster design costs | £0 |
Total costs for everything – |
£982.87 (£40.95 per show – 24 shows) |
Compilation show 2
Sweet Venue Costs | press – £180
Show – £943.21 |
Ed Fringe program / app (for the full run) | £300 (early bird special) |
Marketing Materials (flyers) | £0 |
Marketing Materials (badges) | £0 |
Performer Insurance | £0 (I have Equity) |
Props for the show | £0 |
Poster design costs | £0 |
Total costs for everything – |
£1243.21 (£59.20 per show – 21 shows) |
My costs
I worked it out and approx my food / drink / living costs for the month were £926.66 (£28.95 per day). This is much higher than they would be at home but hey, that’s the Fringe.
Marketing
Beyond the usual flyering I did some additional online and offline promotional work. Here’s what I did… (for my solo show only. I only did flyering etc for the compilation shows)
Britsh Comedy Guide – I made my profile and customised it with BCG Pro.
Pre-Fringe Tour – Did a run of 4 shows in Scotland before the Fringe and then did all the major clubs in Edinburgh.
Podcast – Put a custom plug out to my podcast audience as well as added in a plug to my most downloaded episodes. I also added a ticket link into every episodes shownotes.
Mailing list – I emailed my 1k strong mailing list.
Twitter – I tweeted to my followers and asked them to RT the show link.
I did an interview with Moody Comedy that they tweeted.
I was featured in 7 Chortle articles (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
I was featured in the Poke’s top 25 funniest tweets.
Edinburgh49 wrote an article about me.
I got a 3-star review in Binge Fringe.
I got a 5-star review from Three Weeks.
I won the ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award.
The Results (what you’ve been scrolling for)
To start with i kept daily (hourly, but I’m embarssed to show you those so I won’t be publishing them here) records of ticket sales to show you how the audience numbers built. I think it’s easy for acts to think that a “Sell out show” sold out the minute the tickets went on sale and that is rarely the case.
Daily sales breakdown (Profit and Loss)
Panic Room (30 seats)
Date | Sold | Renveue |
2nd Aug 2019 | 30 | £145 |
3rd Aug 2019 | 12 | £52 |
4th Aug 2019 | 20 | £75 |
5th Aug 2019 | 10 | £15 |
6th Aug 2019 | 11 | £30 |
8th Aug 2019 | 7 | £20 |
9th Aug 2019 | 6 | £80 |
10th Aug 2019 | 19 | £55 |
11th Aug 2019 | 13 | £55 |
12th Aug 2019 | 20 | £62.50 |
13th Aug 2019 | 12 | £30 |
15th Aug 2019 | 17 | £80 |
16th Aug 2019 | 14 | £41 |
17th Aug 2019 | 19 | £53.50 |
18th Aug 2019 | 9 | £16 |
19th Aug 2019 | 14 | £42 |
20th Aug 2019 | 3 | £15 |
22nd Aug 2019 | 1 | £5 |
23rd Aug 2019 | 2 | £5 |
24th Aug 2019 | 4 | £15 |
25th Aug 2019 | 2 | £10 |
24 shows | 263/630 (42%) | £872 |
Box office fees.
Sweet Box Office Commission (3%) | £18.96 |
Fringe Box Office Commission (4%) | £24.34 |
VAT on Fringe Commission (20%) | £4.87 |
So, when all is added up and taken away this show made a profit of £315.94 (£15.04 per show)
Compilation 1 (60 seater)
Date | Sold | Renveue |
2nd Aug 2019 | 9 | £40 |
3rd Aug 2019 | 36 | £180 |
4th Aug 2019 | 19 | £90 |
5th Aug 2019 | 29 | £75 |
6th Aug 2019 | 30 | £80 |
7th Aug 2019 | 14 | £50 |
8th Aug 2019 | 22 | £72.50 |
9th Aug 2019 | 27 | £101.50 |
10th Aug 2019 | 29 | £135 |
11th Aug 2019 | 54 | £227.50 |
12th Aug 2019 | 33 | £112.50 |
13th Aug 2019 | 29 | £112.50 |
14th Aug 2019 | 16 | £60 |
15th Aug 2019 | 34 | £127.50 |
16th Aug 2019 | 16 | £60 |
17th Aug 2019 | 56 | £237.50 |
18th Aug 2019 | 40 | £190 |
19th Aug 2019 | 17 | £56 |
20th Aug 2019 | 4 | £10 |
21st Aug 2019 | 0 | £0 |
22nd Aug 2019 | 0 | £0 |
23rd Aug 2019 | 8 | £25 |
24th Aug 2019 | 10 | £45 |
25th Aug 2019 | 4 | £20 |
24 shows | 536/1440 (37%) | £2,107.50 |
Box office fees.
Sweet Box Office Commission (3%) | £18.33 |
Fringe Box Office Commission (4%) | £77.86 |
VAT on Fringe Commission (20%) | £15.57 |
So, when all is added up and taken away this show made a profit of £982.87 (£40.95 per show)
Compilation 2 (28 seats)
Date | Sold | Renveue |
2nd Aug 2019 | 28 | £125 |
3rd Aug 2019 | 28 | £135 |
4th Aug 2019 | 28 | £140 |
5th Aug 2019 | 28 | £74 |
6th Aug 2019 | 28 | £75 |
8th Aug 2019 | 27 | £112 |
9th Aug 2019 | 31 | £145 |
10th Aug 2019 | 33 | £155 |
11th Aug 2019 | 32 | £125 |
12th Aug 2019 | 28 | £125 |
13th Aug 2019 | 28 | £120 |
15th Aug 2019 | 28 | £115 |
16th Aug 2019 | 29 | £125 |
17th Aug 2019 | 28 | £129.50 |
18th Aug 2019 | 28 | £135 |
19th Aug 2019 | 28 | £135 |
20th Aug 2019 | 27 | £125 |
22nd Aug 2019 | 21 | £100 |
23rd Aug 2019 | 28 | £120 |
24th Aug 2019 | 28 | £125 |
25th Aug 2019 | 25 | £115 |
24 shows | 576/589 (98%) | £2,555.50 |
Box office fees.
Sweet Box Office Commission (3%) | £3.36 |
Fringe Box Office Commission (4%) | £100.14 |
VAT on Fringe Commission (20%) | £20.03 |
So, when all is added up and taken away this show made a profit of £1,005.99 (£47.90 per show)
So my show profit is £2,304.80
however… I now need to take off my costs (above) for actually being in Edinburgh for a month which leaves me with (drum roll please)… £221.14 profit (IF I don’t take into account or charge for the 3 weeks of work that went into PR-ing the shit out of the show and the month of admin that went into the 6 months of preview shows. And even though most of those previews made a profit I still made much less than £4 per hour for everything).
OH FUCK. Rereading this I forgot to factor in the costs of my direcor, John Gordillo, which were around £600 in total. So forget that number above, my loss was £378.86.
So money wise, not a big sucess. As for my aims, let’s look at those.
Aims results
- To get more people on my social following (twitter) / newsletter (I have just over 1000 at the moment)
My twitter following went up by about 300 followers
My newsletter followers went up by just over 300 subsribers. - To get an agent.
Yes… well. I mean. OK. So 5 agents in total came to see me and 2 are very interested. One of which I am interested in. As I type this we’ve had a few meetings and it’s looking good but nothing is on paper.
- To get more touring opportunities.
Yes… I mean it’s hard to measure but I had some touring venues and operators come and we’re in good solid talks. My 5* review and Editors Choice Award really helped me get in with some Australian and New Zealand comedy festivals (and I’ll be out there in Feb / March in 2020 if you fancy coming).
- To eat healthily.
I actually did. I cooked a lot and I also went to the gym 5 times a week. I put on just over 3/4s of a stone but it could have been more.
- To get laid.
A gentlemen never kisses and tells.
Anyway… same time next year?
PS any questions, email me. And if you’d like to send me £1 or 2 to say thanks for all this, my paypal email is simon.m.caine@gmail.com OR you can click the button below.