Before the Fringe even began, stand up Aaron Twitchen discovered that his very expensive (and prize winning) poster had been defaced with the slogan: ‘Boycott the Fringe.’
After taking a couple of days to think about it, he’s still wondering why the person who did it was so angry about the Fringe. As a long-time activist himself, he decided to write an open letter to the disgruntled Fringe graffiti artist.
Dear graffiti protestor,
I, like many Fringe performers, spent thousands of pounds on outdoor marketing in the hopes I would be one of the lucky ones who ascends to TV credits and award nominations. Instead, you sprayed “boycott the Fringe” in a tacky font and ugly colour on the poster that I worked hard to fund.
You’re angry. Obviously. Poorly scripted red letter angry. And I understand. But I want to thank you (mostly for not spraying over the show time or QR code).
You live in a beautiful historic city that has a natural barrier against 5G (at least I can never get signal) and you want to maintain its rustic, historic feel (like having to navigate on instinct because you can’t get 5G).
Every summer, upwards of three million people descend on your city bringing with them between £200 million and £1 billion in boosted economy. What a drag (drag is something you can see nightly at numerous venues across the city, thanks to the Fringe).
Every year, the world’s largest arts festival creates a market that demands beds for divas and converts cupboards into dancefloors. A market you didn’t ask for. It drains your city and sends the price of a single vodka coke above the £8 mark. Finding a vegetable on Cowgate becomes near impossible. Crossing a street without being bombarded with A6 paper becomes totally impossible.
But I’m not the enemy. I’m like you. A working-class person striving to ascend. I work three jobs to save the money I need to fund an Edinburgh show that costs, on average, £10,000 per artist. Note that, it COSTS THE ARTIST. The Fringe doesn’t pay us to be here. In fact, everyone gets paid before us: promoters, venues, PR, print companies, flyerers, photographers, vodka coke pourers. The artist funds it all. And everyone is paid before us. If we’re lucky we don’t lose too much money. If we’re truly fortunate we might almost break even. Most of us won’t, most of us will spend the next year (or two, or three, or more) scrimping and saving to pay off the debt we run up performing in Edinburgh for just three weeks.
You defaced my posters. Posters that I paid thousands of pounds for to promote myself because I’m a regional act, who doesn’t live in London, isn’t on the telly, and so the Fringe is the one time when promoters and agents will actually see my work. Without them, I sink into the void and the thousands of pounds I invested (into your economy) are wasted. I’m fighting. Struggling to keep afloat whilst battered by others success. A bit like Edinburgh during August.
You were right to deface them. You raised an important topic. We need to have a conversation where we engage both artists and residents to strike an equilibrium that suits us both. Protest is important. Vital. Without it, I wouldn’t enjoy the queer civil rights I take for granted. Women couldn’t vote.
But your issue is not with me. It’s with the structure of the festival itself. You can deface my posters, but I have no power to change anything. If you wanted me to boycott the fringe, I wish you had told me in January – before I spent six months of my life writing a show and saving £10,000 to pay for it.
I assumed, when I first saw your graffiti, that it was homophobic. Elections are currently being fought on culture wars and it seems migrants and trans people are the victims of that. I assumed your graffiti would be about that (or the size of my large nose). I’m so grateful to you that it’s not.
If anything; I’m flattered. Protestors only deface the most iconic artworks: Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Somerset’s Stonehenge, Aaron Twitchen’s Himbo. Am I saying my artwork is iconic? No, but you did, by defacing it.
We are in an era when climate protesters are being jailed for longer than child rapists and that’s not right. I want to be the comic who throws the first paint can at the Pleasance wall. I support your right to protest (I just wish it wasn’t on my stunning poster). Your fight is my fight, and I am with you.
Please come to my show, 19.00 at Gilded Balloon. I won’t make you pay for a ticket; I’ll just charge you the cost of the replacement banner…
Love, always,
Aaron
