The Stage

Edinburgh Fringe bosses warn of 2012 technician shortage due to Olympics

Published Monday 22 August 2011 at 11:59 by Thom Dibdin

Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue bosses have warned that the technical demands of events surrounding next summer’s London Olympics could drain available technical staff away from the Scottish capital.

The crucial period will be the opening week of the Olympics, from July 27, which is when Edinburgh’s numerous temporary venues are built ahead of the opening of the fringe on August 3. Speaking at a debate organised by Festivals Edinburgh, Pleasance director Anthony Alderson warned that the skills shortage could escalate costs.

Alderson said: “To build an event the size of the Olympics takes a hell of a lot of people in black T-Shirts. They are very, very skilled people and London is going to need a lot of them. At the moment, they are all here, but they will be in London next year.”

Explaining that the Pleasance is exploring possibilities of bringing in technicians from around Europe, Alderson pointed out that to build and run an operation the size of the Pleasance, which has more than 20 stages and puts on up to 178 shows a day during the fringe, requires in excess of 100 skilled technicians.

“It is a huge amount of work for a very small and very skilled bunch of people. We have talked about it a little and there is concern that these people are going to say this year I am not going to go to Edinburgh because there is so much work in London. I haven’t heard it yet, but we don’t start engaging people until January at any rate.”

Speaking to The Stage, Underbelly co-director Charlie Wood said: “It is not the actual games we are concerned about, it is all the ancillary events that are going to be happening in London and the south east. The corporate events, all the temporary sites which are going to be going up around London.”

Wood estimated that while Underbelly uses some 70 skilled technical staff, the total number needed to build the Edinburgh venues is more than 1,000 people across the whole fringe.

He added: “Every venue needs a skilled technician to build it. The build is the important bit and we will be building in the first week of the Olympics. There is less concern for during the run, but for the build we need riggers, fork lift drivers, lighting designers, sound designers - proper skilled people who get paid £250 a day.”

Both managers expressed concerns over the extra costs of flying in and training technicians to UK Health and Safety standards for the fringe.

Kath Mainland, chief executive of the Fringe Society, told the debate that support would be the key. She said that the society is in conversations with international agencies about technicians, who are qualified but who still have a lot to learn from the training opportunity of building a venue that runs up to 48 shows a day.

She said: “We are going to talk to you [the venue managers], and to Creative Scotland about whether some sort of International partnerships could be set up.”