I can tell you who's funny on the Fringe, and (at greater length) who's not. After four years of practice, I can tell you the quickest route from the Pleasance Courtyard to the Assembly Rooms. I can even tell you, if you stand still long enough, why I think the trend for so-called "offensive" comedy has finally run its course at this year's festival.
But there is one very important thing I can't tell you, and it only occurred to me yesterday: I don't know how much any of the shows costs. While we hacks pay the same price for every show we see (zilch), in the real world the cost of attending the Fringe has been rising steadily, and murmurs are gathering that high prices have begun to squeeze much of the risk-taking out of the occasion.
In situations like this, a little journalism is called for. So I went out to talk to some ticket-buyers on Princes Street about their experience.
Edinburgh resident Sandy Kerr has been coming to the Fringe for years, and feels he has certainly become much more cautious than he used to be about choosing what to see. "I used to go to the Fringe a lot when it was like £2 or £3 for a show," he says, "and you didn't feel you were committing a whole lot of money. It think it gave a lot of the smaller shows a chance. But now it's £10-15 a ticket unless you come to the half-price hut, where the choice is limited. So if you see two shows that can be about £23, not counting what you have to drink or anything, so it's a more serious commitment."
Kerr's view is that £5-6 would be about the right price these days, and Vicky from London, visiting the fringe for the second time, agrees. "I think tickets are certainly getting over-priced now," she says. "It's getting to be a really expensive thing to do, and I feel like the spirit of the Edinburgh festival is getting a bit out of control, really. It's supposed to be about finding new acts, about experiencing things you wouldn't normally know about, and I think the way to do that is to make the pricing a bit more accessible."
To get round this, Vicky and her friend Cat often prefer free and half-price shows, while saving their cash only for occasions when quality is all but guaranteed. Yesterday, they shelled out £14 for Stewart Lee, for instance. "But then that's Stewart Lee," says Vicky, "and you know he's going to put on a good show."
Not that price is always a guarantee of quality. Niku from Edinburgh and Lieka from Rotterdam think that "£8 at most" would be fair for a Fringe ticket, so when they went to see a £12 show (albeit at half-price) they expected something special. "It still wasn't worth even £6," Niku complains. "It was an hour and a half and we stayed for an hour, but then we had to go."
The point that Lieka makes is that, actually, £12 or more is not unreasonable, provided one is confident that the show will justify it. Back home, she says, they use a very simple method to ensure this. "At the Rotterdam International Film Festival you get a ticket at the end of every film so you can rate the movie," she explains, "and then they post the ratings next to the ticket booths and on the internet so you can see what other people like. I think that makes it easier to select a good show."
It is certainly intriguing to imagine a central listing of every Fringe show, marked out of 10 by its audience, freely available on the internet. I, for one, would look at it frequently, and would always fill in my card. Perhaps then prices would start to accurately reflect the shows, and, horror or horrors, we might end up with a risk-free Fringe. Who knows, though - perhaps we would prefer it?
