Here's what we are doing editorially and commercially at the 2024 festival

Here's information for performers and producers on what Chortle will be doing at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. Email feedback@chortle.co.uk to talk more...

 ADVERTISING

This is the most important bit! So many people clamour for reviews, but the bottom line is that the number we can cover is directly related to the income, since we use only professional reviewers.

We have a large comedy-savvy audience –  295,000 unique visitors, racking up 1.1million page views for August 2023.

We also promise to review any show spending at least £250 on advertising this Fringe. It doesn’t mean we’ll only review advertisers by any stretch but it does jump them to the ‘guaranteed to be reviewed’ list. Nothing  jumps anyone on to the ‘guaranteed to be liked’ list, of course! There are no promises on anything other than that we will review the show at some point in the run.

Here are this year’s rates

PERFECT PLAYLIST

The comic picks six stand-up shows, sitcoms, comedy films, etc that mean something to them and write a couple of paragraphs about why. Basically  Desert Island Discs, but for comedy. There are examples here: http://www.chortle.co.uk/perfectplaylist

Those who do this should not have done one before. We’ll run one each day, so there's a limited number. Please don't send on spec as you may be wasting your time! Just indicate if you're interested and we'll get back to you if we can take it.

EDINBURGH FRINGE BINGE/CRINGE/WHINGE

In which the performer writes about their:

Edinburgh binge: Basically the best part of the festival, what they enjoy doing and want to do more of this year

Edinburgh cringe: Most embarrassing story from the festival, and

Edinburgh whinge: What’s the worst thing about the Fringe? We’re going to add the proviso ‘…except for the crippling cost of accommodation’ to this, else everyone is likely to say the same thing – but see also ‘How I’d Fix The Fringe’  below – to stop it get quite repetitive, so encourage more variety of answers!

Performers should answer all 3. As a guideline we’re looking for a minimum 400 words for the whole feature. Inevitably, the comic will have to have been before to be able to answer this (even if as part of line-ups/double acts).

Again we have limited slots, so don't submit on spec. Let me know if you are interested and we'll allocate the spaces we have.

OPINION

Comics can write think pieces on any aspect of comedy or the Fringe - and to run at any time. What they shouldn’t be is blog posts charting their experiences at the festival, but more of an opinion on the state of the industry or the art.  

Feel free to run ideas past me before you commit to writing something if you're unsure - or just submit. Word count is pretty flexible, but 800-1200 is typical. 

We get lots of suggestions about social media and tackling serious topics, especially mental health, in comedy - so if you are doing these, do try to find a new angle!

HOW I’D FIX THE FRINGE

This is partly a subset of the above… we’d like to run a series of essays from people on what could be done to improve the festival. The hope that these are as in-depth as possible and consider solutions and consequences. Eg, rather than just saying ‘make the festival more accessible’ how might you do that…and also how you might do that without increasing demand for accommodation and venues etc at the same time.

If you have a full opinion piece, great. But also if you have just a nugget of an idea, send that over too and we’ll run a few compilations of these.

IMAGES

We need hi-ish res pictures for all the shows. If we don't have yours, please email or dropbox it over. You can tell from this page what’s missing:

https://www.chortle.co.uk/shows/edinburgh_fringe_2024

PUNCHING UP

We’re always looking for fun and entertaining stories for this more whimsical section, so if something interesting happens during the fringe or the build-up, do share it!

EARLY PREVIEWS

If there are any shows that are happy to be seen at a  preview before the Fringe either in London, the South East anytime between now and the start of the Fringe or in Edinburgh on the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday of Edinburgh’s ‘week zero’ let me know (obviously you can do this nearer the time). 

But they should be fully ready to go as there’ll be no caveats about it being a preview or mention of where we saw it in the review. The upside is you get a review published in the first few days of the run which - if it's good! - could be good early publicity.

FAST FRINGE

We’re doing this at the Pleasance Dome at 1830 daily, with 12 acts each doing three minutes: we display the show details during each slot, and you’re invited to exit-flyer. We’re especially interested in anything that’s not straight stand-up.  Contact me for slots (Essentially unpaid: there's a token payment, but we're likely to pool that money to do something more useful with it than faff about with literally hundreds of small amounds)

Published: 10 Jun 2024