Summerhall has always been a haven for creatives during the Edinburgh Festival and beyond. From its bustling courtyard to its diverse programme of shows, workshops and installations, the arts village has provided performers with a space where they can make unique work within a welcoming space. This year, the venue is giving more help to creatives with the Support the Artist Ticket Scheme, which gives audiences the option to add an additional two pounds to their order when they buy their ticket, 100% of which will go to the performer. 

When we met up with Sam Gough, Chief Executive of Summerhall, in the venue’s serene courtyard, he told us the scheme was a continuation of the venues' aims to support artists at all stages of their career and ensure that excellent work comes to the Fringe every year. ‘We’re very much artist-focused,’ said Gough, 'Our mission is not only to provide excellent content for audiences, but to support artists both creatively and financially.'

‘We thought the simplest way of doing that would be adding a ticket option on the site,’ he continued, ‘which is so simple to do at the end of the checkout process. You just select those tickets and then we guarantee that 100% of that additional two pounds goes straight to the artists; no split, no fees, no percentages, no venue contributions.’

The Support the Artist Ticket Scheme is the centrepiece of a series of initiatives designed to foster the creative process at a time when both the price of performing in Edinburgh during August is rising, and the cost of living crisis continues to push out lower earning performers. Included in the initiative are Summerhall Surgeries (an artist development initiative which will offer 16 artists the paid opportunity to showcase unfinished work to an audience of peers and industry figures), Lanyard Drinks (which offers selected food and drinks at a discounted rate for all lanyard-wearing staff and artists working at any venue in the city), and five Fringe awards that celebrate diversity and Scottish performers. 

‘We’ve always nurtured relationships with artists,’ Gough tells us, ‘The benefit of being here all year round as an arts village is the fact that our spaces are our spaces. If it's creatively and artistically important, we can evolve our spaces and our attitudes towards creative work to put the artists at the forefront. And through conversations that we have with artists about what's important to them, what they need to feel supported, we see where the gaps are and close those gaps with support, or some advice or some help.

‘It used to be that being able to offer space to artists to play and create was enough. Now, it's not enough. We need to be able to offer space and cash. And we are trying very hard to do that.’

At time of writing, Summerhall is the only venue to offer a scheme like Support the Artist Ticket Scheme, although they hope that others in Edinburgh will follow their lead. Their place as pioneers is reflected in the diversity of their programming, which foregrounds neurodiversity, people of colour, decolonisation, and other hitherto marginalised discussion topics. ‘We’re very proud of our Rewind Award, which is brand new for 2023. From this moment forward, we will be having an award given to shows that deal with decolonization.

‘We've got work from six continents in the programme, and it is wildly diverse in terms of female-forward, disability focus, issues of colour, sexual identity, migration, grief, loss. We cover a broad spectrum to make sure that we are representing a diverse community year round. It's really important that that really have that sort of community focus.’

Find Summerhall’s full programme and learn more about the Support The Artist Ticket scheme on their official site.