John's fundraiser for The Free Fringe Ltd

John OBrien is raising money for The Free Fringe Ltd
Donations cannot currently be made to this page

Covering the distance from Lands End to John O'Groats by the end of the year.

The Free Fringe was started on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1996 at its original venue, The Footlights and Firkin by Peter Buckley Hill with his comedy show Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians. Disheartened by what he saw as unreasonable hire charges for venues and high ticket prices for the public, PBH (as he is more commonly known) tried a new model for putting on shows. Instead of paying for a venue and charging for tickets, there should be no hire charge and free entrance for everyone. If the audience like the show, they put a voluntary donation in a bucket at the end. Fortunately, a lot of people seem to like this model, which is why PBH’s Free Fringe is now the biggest producer at the Edinburgh Festival, with over 600 shows and 10,000 performances pre-Covid and the total rising again since 2020. That’s why our programme of free shows (“The Wee Blue Book”) has become essential reading for any fringe-goer. The venue makes money from increased drinks sales, the performer goes away several thousand pounds less broke, and visitors get to see far more fantastic quality shows than they could ever have imagined previously. It’s fair to say that the Free Fringe has totally transformed Edinburgh, and now attracts big comedy names, produces award winners and is the most dynamic thing to happen to the festival since the beginning of the Fringe.

Story

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am raising money for pbh free fringe. They are an organisation that allow performers from stand up comedians to musicians to perform at the Edinburgh festival every year for free. It is well known that the Edinburgh festival can put performers chasing their dreams into financial difficultly. pbh free fringe has made the fringe accessible to acts who haven't had the funds to perform there over the past 20 odd years. It even allows them to make a profit whilst a lot of acts doing the big venues end up at a financial loss even when they have sold out most of their shows during the fringe.

I have worked with the pbh free fringe for over 10 years and have done really well in Edinburgh with them.

The only way they can survive and help keep the fringe accessible to normal people is from donations from the public and performers alike. These are all voluntary contributions. These contributions allow the pbh free fringe to continue.

This year the pbh free fringe has become a registered charity so that's I've decided to do my bit to help.

So I've decided to give myself the challenge of walking the distance of Lands End to John O Groats between September and the end of the year. The total distance in just under 2000km. So I've just rounded it up to 2000.

So far I've done129.4km by the 10th of September. A long way to go but I'm determined to do it.

I'm aiming to raise £2000 for the cause. £1 for every km. Seems fair.

Donation summary

Total
£30.00
+ £5.00 Gift Aid
Online
£30.00
Offline
£0.00

Charities pay a small fee for our service. Learn more about fees