The Stage

Fringe Sunday set to be cancelled if sponsor is not found

Published Wednesday 7 January 2009 at 16:20 by Thom Dibdin

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Fringe Sunday, the largest single event on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, looks set to be dropped from this year’s festival as organisers search for a last-minute sponsor. Other sponsorship-dependent events are not under threat.

First held in 1981, the day-long extravaganza of free taster pieces for the rest of the fringe has always proved popular. It attracted a quarter of a million visitors to the Meadows last year.

A spokesman for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society told The Stage that “because of escalating costs and the likelihood of a sponsor not being forthcoming in this current economic climate, then Fringe Sunday may have to go.

“Fringe Sunday was not part of a three-year sponsorship cycle, whereas the Royal Bank on the Royal Mile is - that is safe, and guaranteed as going ahead as normal. The majority of fringe sponsorship is signed off as part of either a two or three-year package.”

A final decision has to be made by early February. The society has been able to absorb the costs of the event in previous years, when it has operated with only intermittent or partial sponsorship. However, the fringe has used up its reserves in paying for the fallout from last August’s box office failings and is unable to find the estimated £70,000 needed to stage this year’s event.