Assembly Rooms loses Orange funding

Published Tuesday 3 February 2004 at 10:50 by Ruth Gillespie

Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue The Assembly Rooms is facing financial crisis after mobile phone giant Orange pulled out of a £150,000 sponsorship deal after just one year.

While plans for this summer’s programme are going ahead, management has predicted severe financial losses unless a replacement headline sponsor is found.

Director of Assembly Theatre, the charity that runs the Assembly Rooms, William Burdett-Coutts said: “It came as something of a surprise. From all the meetings we had with Orange managers they seemed extremely happy and we thought they were getting what they wanted out of the deal. We consider ourselves the flagship venue for the Fringe and would like to think we provide an extremely exciting and high-profile line-up.

“This is not the first time we have been in this position - we have gone through a number of headline sponsors over the last ten years but most of them stayed with us for two or three years. We now expect to carry a loss on this season but are not prepared to compromise on the standard of our programme. We are driven by the quality of the work we put on and our audience expects a high standard here.”

Last year box office takings for the Assembly Rooms totalled £1.5 million with more than 60 companies staging 1,200 shows. Previous headline acts have included Peter Kay, Ross Noble and Rory Bremner.

The mobile phone company has also cut £50,000 of sponsorship cash from the Fringe’s listings guide and the Fringe Sunday event.

A spokesperson for the Festival Fringe Office said: “Orange has changed direction in terms of its promotions in Scotland but the main funding withdrawal is from the Assembly Rooms. It was by no means a large sponsor for the Festival Fringe Office and we will not suffer dramatically.

“We will help the Assembly Rooms where we can, although finding the money is their own concern. The office is here to help performers bring their shows to the festival but we will help to secure enough funding so the venue can remain a successful part of the festival.”

Orange is expected to continue its support for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the International Book Festival.

Pip MacLennan, sponsorship manager for Scotland, said: “We have supported the Fringe Festival for five years and this has been successful but now we want to go back to our roots and concentrate on what we can offer our customers in terms of promotions. Our focus has always been very much on film, music and fiction and we want to highlight our presence within these areas for 2004 and beyond.”