Mobius Are Off To Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024

It’s nearly that time again, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This is Mobius’s 19th year representing shows at the festival and our Senior PR Account Manager Elaine Jones is going back for a second year. In this blog she reflects on working at last year’s Fringe, Mobius’s roster this year and why something like the Fringe still matters.

And if you missed it our Senior PR Account Executive Lorn previously wrote another Edinburgh Festival Fringe blog post called 'Why are New Yorkers choosing to bring their work to Edinburgh?' which you can read here.

Last year was my first year working at the Fringe. I’d been once as a punter a few years ago when I visited a friend in Glasgow and we headed over to Edinburgh for a day trip. It was the final weekend when everything is a bit quieter, but we caught a few dance shows as well as comedian Daniel Sloss, who we saw for less than a tenner and has since gone onto Netflix specials and breaking up 100,000 marriages (if you watch his Netflix special Jigsaw, you’ll know what I mean and that will make total sense and if you haven’t, please do give it a watch, he’s incredible). One of the best things about the Fringe for me is knowing you’ve managed to catch someone or a show who hasn’t quite hit the big time yet, but is on the cusp of achieving great success and popularity.

The Fringe is a special event to visit and it’s a special event to work at. It’s hard work of course, we tend to work every day, but what an amazing thing to say you’ve worked at. Just like most of the acts and other PR’s, we travel up on the Monday before it all kicks off on the Friday and we’re often jostling for space on the train with them for all our bags. We’re there until the final weekend living and working together also like the performers. Everyone has friends or partners come up to stay with us (as you can see from my pictures in this blog with my friend Duncan) and other members of the company come up as well to break things up a bit for us. We have a team meeting at 9am every day over breakfast where we run through actions and what work we need to do then off we go with our days. We cram a lot into our working days at the Fringe whether it’s watching the shows we’re representing, staffing photocalls, overseeing interviews or catching other shows we’re fans of or would like to work with and generally just soaking up the atmosphere walking around the city. You can watch our Instagram weekly roundups from last year to see some of what we got up ( Week 1 , Week 2 & Week 3 ).

From what the team told me based on their previous years working at the festival, 2023 started to feel a bit more like the Fringe before Covid in terms of the buzz around the city, though overall numbers were down on pre 2019, but up on 2021 (some of that year was virtual due to Covid) and 2022. All that said, some acts sadly still can’t afford the Fringe whether it’s accommodation or lack of funding and costs seem to have gone up again with even more acts not being able to afford it. If established names like Gail Porter and Richard Herring can’t afford it and a big name like Jason Manford stating he’ll be making a loss, it can feel a bit hopeless for everyone else. It’s a consistent issue and with the amount of venues hosting shows down this year adding to the other costs, it can feel difficult to be upbeat about it all sometimes.

But onto more positive things, the shows themselves. We have roughly the same amount as we did last year and we’re pretty excited about them. The best thing about the roster, which I think is the same every year, is the range. We’ve got some grief and loss, living with different health conditions, some dance, spoken word, film parodies, a bit of masculinity, family and a couple of musicals. We have more shows than ever from performers from outside the UK. We have artists based in the USA, Australia, Argentina, India and Hong Kong this year and it’s another highlight of the festival to soak up other cultures.

One of the best parts of this job is working with our clients to try and help grow their shows and themselves and to watch them develop. We all know how important Fringe theatre is for both the artists and the audience. Acts learn a lot about themselves and their show and the audience also learn a lot. Fringe theatre deals with some pretty important topics that need to be talked about, particularly when we’re living through some difficult times like we are now. It’s really an amazing thing to watch someone in a one person show going deep into their past to inform and entertain you. And some just give you an hour of escapism which can be just as important. Walking around Edinburgh and just seeing where the day takes you then stumbling on something or someone that entertained you or moved you is what it’s all about.

So here’s to another Fringe, hope to see you there!

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