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

Show Costs –

Every Room Becomes A Panic Room When You Overthink Enough (my 4th solo show)

Compilation show 1

Compilation show 2

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)

Box office fees.

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)

Box office fees.

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)

Box office fees.

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. 

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