2023 Edinburgh Fringe
Gilded Balloon Teviot to close for Edinburgh Fringe 2024
- Gilded Balloon Teviot will be closed for refurbishment during the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe as the venue seeks an alternative home
- Artistic directors Katy Koren and Karen Koren have warned So You Think You're Funny? is under threat unless they can secure additional funding
- The Gilded Balloon has instigated a female-only MC policy for Late'n'Live and will host a tribute show to the late improviser Andy Smart at this year's festival
A major Edinburgh Fringe venue will be closed at next year's festival, with the 18-month shuttering of Gilded Balloon Teviot for refurbishment from this autumn.
Fringe shows begin next week and an announcement on the contractor for modernising work to Teviot Row House, the world's oldest purpose-built student union, is set to be made in the middle of this year's festival.
However, the Gilded Balloon are in talks with the University of Edinburgh and say they are confident of securing a similarly-sized base in the surrounding Bristo Square area for their 2024 programme.
This will complement the Edinburgh-based operator's other existing venues, The Museum, in the auditorium of the nearby National Museum of Scotland, and Adam House in Chambers Street, which becomes Patter Hoose during the festival.
In an interview with BCG Pro published today, Gilded Balloon artistic directors, Katy Koren and her mother Karen Koren, confirmed the "spanner in the works" of the closure of Teviot, which hosts most of the "Big Four" venue's roughly 180 shows.
"We're making alternative plans. We've got quite good leads near to the Bristo Square area, a similar area to where Teviot is, we're going to have another space there," Katy Koren said. "But we don't want to announce anything prematurely ... I'm hoping we'll be able to make an announcement during the Fringe or just after."
She is adamant that the Gilded Balloon will not be closed during the 2024 festival. "Absolutely not," she said. "We will still have the Museum, Patter Hoose and this alternative venue in the Bristo Square area. You can't get rid of us that easily."
Elsewhere in the interview, the Korens reveal that the Gilded Balloon's prestigious new act competition, So You Think You're Funny?, is under threat unless they can attract financial investment.
Held at every Fringe since 1998, SYTYF? has previously been won by the likes of Peter Kay, Dylan Moran, Lee Mack, Aisling Bea and David O'Doherty.
"We self-fund it and it costs us a hefty amount of money, though nothing like what it costs to run the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, as came out recently," Katy Koren explained. "We can cover it at the moment. We never used to think about it. But ever since the pandemic, we've been like 'oh, this is costing us £30,000 a year' and we just swallow it up."
Having recently launched a "Support the Artist" scheme, which allows festival-goers to pay an extra £2 for their ticket that goes directly to the performer, the Gilded Balloon is now looking at "alternative funding options" for the competition.
Katy Koren said: "If the Arts Council and Creative Scotland say they fund comedy, then these early stage programmes are what they should be supporting. But to be honest, as two business owners who are stretched beyond belief, it's very difficult. We'd have to employ somebody just to look into those new funding models, be a fundraiser and run the competition.
"So we're in a tricky spot and we're looking at all options at the moment. Commercial sponsorship would be the way. That's something we've always relied on in the past. But that's a completely different landscape now as everyone knows."
With pre-festival ticket sales down generally on pre-pandemic 2019 levels but up on last year, the Gilded Balloon has also revamped its infamous late-night show Late'n'Live to feature exclusively female comperes, following a successful pilot in 2022.
Katy Koren suggested that the long-running comedy and music show had become "aggressive and not a particularly enjoyable gig for our artists, particularly for women" in the 2010s. "And we've been looking at ways to make certain changes to the gig for the better over the years, even before the pandemic.
"After the pandemic, we wanted to do something. Not radical, just enough to completely change the vibe. And the way to do that is with the MC, they dictate how the show runs. The female MCs on the circuit are incredible. And since starting to book comedy, I've always preferred to book female MCs because I think they set the room up positively. We started doing that a lot when we did have the [Gilded Balloon] Basement [in Rose Street], year round in Edinburgh.
"We've also changed the start time, brought it much earlier, because people don't seem to be able to stay up so late at the Fringe now."
The Korens, who run their business out of Leith for most of the year, added that they have no plans to return to a year-round, "bricks and mortar" venue anytime soon, following the 2020 closure of The Gilded Balloon Basement due to the financial impact of Covid-19. Instead, they plan to focus more on event management throughout Scotland.
And they revealed that after booking trans comic Jen Ives and gender-critical comic Elaine Miller at concurrent times at the Patter Hoose for last year's Fringe, leading to a row about audience members deliberately sabotaging shows, they have updated their programming policies.
Meanwhile, the Gilded Balloon will host a tribute show to the late comedian and improviser Andy Smart at this year's festival.
A regular member of The Comedy Store Players team, Smart had been set to return to the Fringe in this year's The Impro All Stars show with long-time improv collaborators Stephen Frost and Ian Coppinger, before his sudden death aged 63 in May.
The one-hour show in the Gilded Balloon Teviot's biggest room, The Debating Hall, will take place on 12th August and feature a mix of improvisors and stand-ups, with the full line-up set to be announced shortly.