Jon Morgan Resigns as Fringe Director - New Job Anyone?
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Friday saw the resignation of the Edinburgh Fringe Director, Jon Morgan. He states that he wants to return to producing and presenting.
We probably all know by now that the background to this includes the difficulties with the Fringe box office ticketing system. Last week saw the announcement that ticket sales for this year’s Fringe were down 10% over last year, the first drop in 8 years. Obviously other factors were at play such as the Credit Crunch, the Olympics and the very wet weather. However, the co-located and co-incident Edinburgh International Festival showed a 7% increase in its ticket sales, despite the afore mentioned handicaps, to which it too was subject. This brings into focus what might have been for the Fringe had the box office run smoothly.
So, a vacancy exists but who would want to take the chalice? I can’t help but compare this to the dilemma of replacing Gordon Brown as leader of the British Labour Party. A successor is almost guaranteed to lose the next general election in short order and be dumped themselves.
So where’s the similarity for the next Fringe director? A decision on which box office system to adopt for next year cannot be made until the end of the Autumn, when a box office system survey, set up by the Fringe Society Board, has issued its findings. A ticketing expert at the Society’s AGM warned the Board that it was highly unlikely that a new ticketing system could be installed in time for next year’s Fringe on that timescale. The Chair’s stoic and monosyllabic response attempted to contradict this view - somewhat unconvincingly. So the danger for the next Fringe Director is that we might see a re-run next year of the box office problems, which could again result in resignations.
Anyone still interested in the vacancy? CVs at the ready!
