Edinburgh Comedy Festival 'failed' in bid to attract big sponsor says Gilded Balloon chief
August 9, 2010 4:55pm by Such Small Portions
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Doubts have been cast over the future of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival after one of its key venue managers voiced concerns over the direction that the venture - and her own venue - were heading.
According to the Herald Scotland, Karen Koren, founder of the Gilded Balloon, the new venture has failed to live up to it’s initial hype and attract a sufficient big money sponsor.
Koren also took a swipe at some of the fellow Edinburgh Comedy Festival venues, accusing them of being ‘more commerical’ than her own venue.
The Edinburgh Comedy Festival was set-up by four of the biggest Edinburgh Fringe Venues, The Gilded Balloon, The Pleasance, The Underbelly and the Assembly Rooms two years ago in an attempt to attract a major financial backer.
The move sparked criticism from many sources at the time over whether the new ‘festival within a festival’ was damaging the fringe as a whole and side-lining smaller acts and venues who didn’t take part.
The Edinburgh Comedy Festival promised sponsors an ‘unprecedented opportunity to benefit from an association with a world-class event from inception’.
Speaking to the Herald Koren said: “The fact is we are the smallest of the big four. In the 1990s it was the big three: the Assembly, Pleasance and I hooked up in 1993, and that certainly gave the Gilded Balloon a step up, from the bowels of the Cowgate to being recognised as a place that discovers good comics and so on.
“I am nowhere near as commercial as Assembly and Underbelly for example. However if you can’t beat them, join them.
“I am personally not in agreement with the Edinburgh Comedy Festival and the other three know that. I think we could have a comic Fringe but the comic fringe should still be part of that Fringe. But that’s maybe not how the others want to do it.”
“We have not managed to get that big sponsorship so, in a way, it has defeated its own purpose. And, whether we like it or not, we are in competition … when it comes to the acts it’s each for its own.”
Read the interview with Karen Koren in the Herald here.
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