Dani Rae has been General Manager of the Assembly Festival for 3 years, before this she was Director of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, and before that a senior team-member with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. The Assembly Festival, the brain child of William Burdett-Coutts back in 1981, essentially invented the multi-venue, curated hub model, and is considered one of the pre-eminent venues operating every August. She was kind enough to sit down with me to discuss the unique roll The Assembly Festival plays within the Fringe, the trials of recent times, and hopes for the future.
Assembly Festival
3rd – 29th August
For further details click here.
Prompts from me: Italics
Dani Rae: bold
Could you summarise your philosophy as a company?
I’d say that we are quality, and that’s what we’re about: quality for of experience and quality of programme.
I would say that Assembly is high quality. We curate from the ground up, so everything from the seats that you’re watching the shows from, the shows that you’re watching, the food that you eat when you come and have a snack with us. From start to finish and from the second you step in and buy a ticket, we’re about quality on the Fringe. We’ve been around for 40 years and that does lead to some expertise, I’d say, and I think that’s what we’re really good at giving from a company’s perspective, despite the fact that we’re pop-up venues, the artists don’t have to compromise as much as they might do elsewhere on their technical requirements and I think that’s what draws a lot of companies to us.
How do you distinguish yourselves from others?
We’ve always been in Edinburgh based company. I live here, my team lives here. We operate out of the Assembly Roxy year round, so we’re here in a way that some others aren’t, but also that’s important to us: that we’re not just parachuting in, and putting something up that has no has impact on the city, we’re part of that, we care about it.
Based in Edinburgh, for Edinburgh
We’re an Edinburgh-based company. We’ve always been an Edinburgh-based company. I live here my team lives here. We operate out of the Assembly Roxy year round, so we’re here in a way that some others aren’t, we really care about the city, and we’re part of it.
I’m not saying that others don’t do that, Gilded (Balloon) and other organisations are Scottish based as well, but that’s one of the things that really drives us: we want to make this happen and be part of as well.
It’s why I got into the game in the first place.
Admire any others in the Fringe space?
The last couple of years, we’ve worked together closer than ever in fact with other venue operators, trying to see a way through and still be here at the end. I admire Karen and Katie hugely (GB) in their tenacity and still being here, and The Pleasance have really got their charitable arm recognised. I think we all work in very similar, but also really quite strikingly different ways that maybe aren’t obvious to audiences, but are certainly to stakeholders, and other people that we engage with. Everybody will work with different people for different reasons and I think we all learn from each other and give to each other; we’re quite a collegiate bunch.
Got them Lockdown blues?
We’ve embraced a lot of things. Our team working is more hybrid now than before, which allows for people to have more flexibility in where & when they’re working.
I would say that Assembly is high quality. We curate from the ground up, so everything from the seats that you’re watching the shows from, the shows that you’re watching, the food that you eat when you come and have a snack with us.
Dani Rae
Being sent to Coventry
To support the organisation through what was a really difficult time, it’s tough because the economics are tough. We realised that it’s really precarious relying on the Festival to provide for an organisation. So last year we were invited to partner with Coventry City of Culture Trust to do essentially what we do in George Square: bring our beautiful brilliant festival garden to Coventry city centre. It was really lovely to be welcomed to a new city, and it was really lovely to be doing what we do best in Edinburgh, and taking that model to somewhere that didn’t really have experience of that. Our Coventry site reopened for the Easter weekend and will run right the way till the end of August.
It’s really lovely that we can use that relationship to bolster what we can do in Edinburgh, and vice versa.
Keeping things sustainable as well, I think that’s really been one of the tricky things to come out of lockdown. Wearing disposable masks, and the sheer amount of plastic stemming from lateral flow testing has made it hard to stay strong on our mission of the last few years, and lead the way on being as sustainable as possible. Making sure we reuse and recycle, and all that sort of stuff.
Hopes for this year?
I hope that we get our festival! It’s feeling pretty good right now, and there’s plenty of artists that want to come and join us, we’re planning and moving forward but it was so precarious. We didn’t find out until I think it was mid to late June last year that we were going to be able to do anything in August, so it was a very quick turnaround. I’m looking forward to having time to be able to put in place what we do, and not burn out our team trying to make something happen.
When our Food Festival opened last year, we didn’t really advertise the time to avoid raising expectations of when we’d be ready. Despite that, when we opened the gates, there were people waiting, and they just came on in. I nearly cried at that moment, because it was just so lovely to see that people want to be part of this Festival from the get-go.
Edinburgh loves the Fringe
I’m also really looking forward to welcoming more audiences back. You know, we got a lovely amount last year; really proof of the pudding that Edinburgh loves this festival, and we’re a central part of that.
When our Food Festival opened last year, we didn’t really advertise the time to avoid raising expectations of when we’d be ready. Despite that, when we opened the gates, there were people waiting, and they just came on in. I nearly cried at that moment, because it was just so lovely to see that people want to be part of this Festival from the get-go.
Ways to optimise the way forward?
That’s a tricky question…I guess in terms of making it more efficient. I think the best thing we can do is to try and give each other confidence that we’re going ahead, and give audiences time to realize it’s happening.
Will the audiences return?
I think audience buying behaviour will have changed…people at the beginning of lockdown were up for postponing their tickets, but the longer it went on the less likely folks were to buy a ticket, months in advance. So that’s going to be tricky to weather from a cash flow perspective, but also just to try and anticipate whether people are going to come.
We know given last year that people will come, but the more we can give audiences confidence that it’s going to happen, the better, so we need to work together to do that.
We need our agencies: Creative Scotland, Visit Scotland, and the Scottish Government to help us have that kind of confidence. We’ve all got to work together on that, I think.
She carried on…
You know Scotland’s very different to England, and we’ve noticed this particularly since working in Coventry that the way that Scotland has approached the pandemic has been very different, and that is going to replicate an audience behaviour. We need to instil confidence that we’re going to be safe, that we’re going to be sustainable, that we’re going to be high quality. You know people are spending money on a ticket but costs are increasing, so if you’re going to buy a ticket you want to know it’s going to be a good time, or a challenging time, or whatever reason you’re buying that ticket for in the first place. So, between us, between the artists, and the venues, and our stakeholders we need to work to make sure that the audiences know what they’re going to get is what they want.
I’m also really looking forward to welcoming more audiences back. You know, we got a lovely amount last year; really proof of the pudding that Edinburgh loves this festival, and we’re a central part of that.
Dani Rae
Favourite bookings from prior years…
One of the lovely things about the festival, is you do get returners year-on-year. We already have David O’Doherty, the Irish comedian on sale and he’s been with us for a few years, and there’s a bit of a tradition of his being the last performance in Assembly’s programming. The team all end up going to that as a sort of “We did it”, kind of moment.
Happy belated 40th Birthday!
It’s our 40th year! – well technically it was supposed to be in 2020, but we’re finally getting to do our 40th year, and that will be quite exciting, a bit of a ruby sparkle.
I’m going to mention Susie McCabe, she’s coming back and, again, somebody that’s been with us for a wee while and just a really, really cool lady who’s weathered lockdown really well; it’s delightful to be able to have her back on.
I mention my continuing love of Nick Helm at the Festival, and fond memories of “I Think You Stink” hosted at the Assembly Roxy in 2019. Just a wonderful show, and a wonderful comedian.
We touch then on the idea of the Festivals as a cash cow:
It’s a really tricky thing in reality, and it can be quite hand to mouth. We’ve got to weather that somehow.
We don’t do it for the money.
We do it because we want to feel that collective experience of sitting in an audience, our heartbeats regulating, and experiencing that life.
What should the future be for the Fringe?
I think we need to be headed to a place where audiences and artists can get the most out of the festival, and I think we are in that position. You know going back to 2019, Festival season in Edinburgh, is the best arts market out there for artists in terms of getting your work seen, and getting your work picked up and taken to other festivals, or to transition to tele or a Netflix special.
I think that it’s important that the Edinburgh Fringe remains that kind of preeminent marketplace and I think we, as curators, and audiences have a duty to support those artists who got us through lockdown and to make the most of that really.
Finding artists in new places
The Fringe gets criticism I think that is actually equivalent to the wider ecosystem of the arts sector. It doesn’t excuse us from having to deal with things, but I think we need to pull together. We need to find ways of supporting artists that don’t think the Fringe is for them to come. We need to be making sure that we’re going to find those artists in the places where we wouldn’t typically look.
On accommodation costs for artists…
It is really tricky, and we work with brilliant agents to try and get as good a deal as we can. I think the Halls of Residence around the city — and all the student accommodation…well they’ve started to come on board.
Spread the Festival? Build the Infrastructure
Queen Margaret have worked with the Fringe Society for a bit to try and offer a certain amount, but obviously that’s a wee bit of a route out of the city, and I think part of what the city needs to do, is to support that infrastructure to make sure it feels safe for people to be able to be slightly out of the centre for accommodation. We need bus and trams and all the rest of it that can support artists, crew, even tourists to be that wee bit further out, so that the city can support the dispersion of people a bit which would hopefully allow for better access. I think there’s so many more student accommodation blocks popping up.
If I could solve one thing, if I could go and have conversations with the planning officers and the corporations that come in to do that.I would ask them to dedicate a certain amount of stock for August, for artists. I mean how cool would that be? You don’t have students around at that time, so make that provision for the festival’s capital of the world.
I referred to Anthony Alderson (The Pleasance) and his idea of a Festival Village a la an Olympic Village to house incomers…
It’s certainly been mooted over the years, hasn’t it? There was one year when there was a big camping glamping site out at Ingliston for artists. I think we have to respect the fact that our artists are human beings and deserve to have a bed to themselves and a clean bathroom, and all of the stuff you would get on a decent tour.
A friend of mine in Glasgow is just about to move into the prior Commonwealth Games athlete’s village…It’s about that stock really and again the hotels stepping up.
How do you respond to the claims over-tourism?
I think that if you look at some of the headlines from 30 years, 40 years ago, you know when we started there were claims that it’s too big then! It’s going to plateau, it will plateau: I’ve been saying this for years.
I go back to my point about the need for infrastructure to support it. You know, you should be able to get through town on public transport , but you should be able to circumvent it as well.
We do it because we want to feel that collective experience of sitting in an audience, our heartbeats regulating, and experiencing that life.
Dani Rae
Getting data-savvy
There’s some really brilliant data from the Data Thistle company, who work with agencies to look at a kind of traffic light system where, say there’s a big concert in the Usher Hall for example, then the zebra crossing at closing time is on for a longer duration to help everybody disperse quicker. It’s these sorts of clever interventions we need. We’ve got 70/75 years of data to be able to predict the movement of people, so we should be investing in making that happen and that will ultimately help.
I posit my own idea that the Festivals don’t cause over-tourism, the issues stem from over-concentration of footfall due to venues crowing certain hubs. I cite the move of the Book Festival to the Old Town, as part of the inevitable creep of all activities into the same, limited areas.
We’re still in the New Town! We’re still there! I guess there’s schools of thought…there’s economies of scale to consider in terms of making business models work, but investment, Government investment would help us make other moves.
We have had events over at the Ice Rink before, we’re really friendly with the Biscuit Factory, there are pockets of that (moving venues to other parts of the city).
Does the city really want the Festivals dispersed?
But it is really tricky to take that risk and also to convince companies to take that risk, to go a bit further out of town; and then at the same time you see what happened last year with the EIF going to Inverleith Park, so does the city really want it to be dispersed? Would they rather it was in one place, so they could avoid or engage as they so desire.
It’s a tricky problem to solve and I think we’ll never please everybody.
I suggest that the completion of the new Tram route to New Haven will transform possibilities for Leith, and Leith Theatre in particular; if, I add, the financial resources can ever be found to complete its restoration.
Definitely which is an incredible space! That’s a real thing in terms of capital investment: there hasn’t been a capital pot of money that Creative Scotland have had since…I think it was 2013, might be even longer than that…So for us like the Assembly Checkpoint, one of our main hubs, we have the ability to use that year round, but year round we can only put 60 people in it; but in the festival we fit over 200 in it!
Capital investment is the key to the future
We could have a year venue…really spread out, year round, if we could find some capital to put into making that venue happen. That’s true of lovely Leith Theatre, that’s true of what Gilded Balloon wanted to do with The Basement. We simply haven’t got a lot of money to make these things happen.
On arts as a love project…
It’s still a valid career, and I’m very lucky to be in a salaried position. It’s a privilege but I’ve worked hard to get here. I’m fortunate to be part of a company that can sustain this, but it is really precarious, as Covid showed us.
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