- How to take part
- New Town Theatre (former Universal Arts Theatre) - Plans
- 2009 Festival Programme
- 2008 Festival Programme
- 2007 Festival Programme
- Virtual Tour
96 George Street is the Freemasons Hall built during 1911 – 1912 to serve as the Grand Lodge of Scotland. It is a beautiful building lavishly decorated. Situated 300 meters from the Assembly Rooms and 300 meters from the International Book Festival, it is ideally placed for a fringe venue.
We adapt the building for theatrical purposes during the Fringe while retaining the essence of its history, beauty and magnificence. The outside of the building is unmissable with its large displays, publicity boards and exterior flood lighting. The foyer of the building provides ample space for displaying publicity material.
The Box office is situated on the ground floor.
We provide all the basic theatre facilities: - staging, seating, basic lighting and sound. Please remember that these spaces are temporary theatres so plans may vary from year to year and are subject to licensing modifications. More detailed information is available upon request.
Situated in Grand Hall the main meeting place of the Grand Lodge of Scotland this is a comfortable performance space for larger scale productions. It is ideal for all types of theatrical productions.
This is more intimate 180 seater, which is Universal Arts’ most flexible space. It has arena seating (raked) at the back of the room which can be partitioned off to create a smaller space as desired. The front part of the room can be set with chairs or tables and chairs in a cabaret style. It has a black box stage with wings and backstage crossover providing entrances stage left and right. The Mysterious is ideal for medium sized productions and cabaret.
Universal Arts Theatre provides professional technical support crew and trained box office and front of house staff, many of whom have been working with us for a number of years.
While many other venues provide non-professional crew all our technicians are trained, with many years of experience in theatre and importantly, of the Fringe and its special requirements. Our technical support will be on site at all times to deal with problems and if you haven’t a technical operator of your own, for an extra charge they can manage your daily get-in and operate your lights and sound (see paragraph Rehearsal/Technical Get-in).
All our staff understand the particular pressures Fringe companies are under and make a special effort to be efficient and supportive in helping with technical, back stage or front of house matters. They will be more than willing to try to point you in the right direction if you are hunting for props, looking for copy shops, or if you just need to find a good local pub to relax in.
 Universal Arts Theatre operates a computerised ticket agency system. We take credit card telephone bookings as well as walk-up sales. A small booking fee is applied for advance purchase. All companies receive a report showing the number of tickets sold and the amount of money taken and a summary of complimentary and press tickets, detailing to whom these tickets were issued. We also liaise with the Fringe Box Office on your behalf. For this full box office service we charge 4% + vat of gross tickets sales from our box office.
Merchandise – we can sell your merchandise through our box-office system. We charge a commission of 15% + vat for this service.
Each company is allocated a technical get-in/rehearsal as a part of the standard rental fee (8 hours in Majestic and 4 hours in Mysterious). We are happy to arrange for any lighting and sound equipment you may require over and above the equipment provided in each space. We can arrange hires for you, which will be charged back to you at cost and pre-rig before your rehearsal/technical get-in. As mentioned above, if you need an operator to run your show this can be provided for an extra cost. An operator costs £30 per show.
We publish a high quality professionally designed and printed Venue Brochure. We produced and distributed approximately 20,000 brochures both locally and nationally. Each company performing in Mysterious space has an eighty-word entry and photograph or image. For the companies performing in Majestic we allocate double space with up to 140 words and and photograph or image. You can see a web version copy of our venue brochures elsewhere on our web-site to give you an idea of the scale and quality of shows presented in our venues.
In tandem with the Fringe Press Office we promote the venue and the companies within as a whole. However we strongly advise all visiting companies to mount their own thorough press and publicity operation, as we do not provide press office services for individual shows. With 20 companies performing in the venue we don’t pretend to be able to provide an adequate number of press officers to ensure you get the dedicated campaign that you need.
We can provide professional digital video recording of your show during the Fringe with 1, 2 or 3 cameras. Sample promotional videos are available on request. Fees can be tailored to suit your requirements. If you bring an external company to film your show, a facility fee will be payable to the venue.
We hold two parties during the festival. The first is mid-festival which is a chance for everyone to say goodbye to companies who are leaving and welcome new arrivals! The second party is the last night party, which starts after the final performance and goes on till sunrise! We are also keen to celebrate birthdays, awards, engagements….. any excuse will do!
We try to keep our rental prices down without compromising the professional service we provide. Our rental arrangement is 40% of the total ticket sales with a Minimum Guarantee (whichever is grater) based on 20% of capacity at an recommended average ticket price of between £5 and £12 depending on the time of day and length of slot
Due to recent changes in VAT legislation, the VAT-able element of your guaranteed fee has reduced, however there still remains a VAT payment. More details follow in the next paragraph and we apologise in advance for the fact that VAT is confusing and boring. If you are VAT registered we can supply you with a VAT receipted invoice.
Here goes: We charge a basic guaranteed fee for the lease of the theatre space. This sum is subsequently off-set against 40% of your box-office. This exempts us from adding VAT (at 17.5%) to 50% of the guarantee (the remaining 50% relates to the services element of the space – seating and basic lighting/ sound - and is therefore subject to VAT). If, at the end of the festival, the guarantee is less than 40% of your box-office we will charge you the difference. This additional amount will be subject to VAT. Any other deals will be VAT-able. Please note that we are required to charge VAT on all other services ie: the venue Brochure and Web-site entry; Technical hires and support as required; Box-office commission.
We will be delighted if you can join us for the entire festival, however, as companies often wish to come to the festival for two of its three and a half weeks, we have developed a two-part timetable which provides the best opportunity for promoting your show and is great value for money.
In 2010 New Town Theatre runs from 5 – 29th August. For those interested in performing for only half of the festival, the first half is a block of up to 12 performances, 5-16 Aug, and the second half is a block of up to 12 performances, 18-29 Aug. The 17th is a dark day for all companies, including those who are running for the whole festival, as this is the changeover/technical day.
We require:
40% upon signing the lease, with two further installments (40% and 20%) before the start of the festival.
Brochure and Web Site entry (£500 + VAT @ 17.5% for Mysterious, and £1000 + VAT @ 17.5% for Majestic) must be paid not later than 1 April.
Standard slot lengths vary between 1hr 10 minutes and 1hr 45 minutes, however this can be changed to suit the particular requirements of your show.
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR SLOT TIME INCLUDES TIME FOR YOUR SHOW PLUS YOUR GET-IN AND GET-OUT. You must allow a MINIMUM of 10 minutes to get-in and 10 minutes to get out.
Please call us for guide prices or send us detailed information about your show and we can give you a more accurate fee for your show.
Please send us:
- completed application form.
- details about your company and a description of your production.
- brief technical details and running time of your production.
- dates and space preferred.
- any promotional material – i.e., video recording, print and press cuttings from this or past productions and,
if new writing, a copy of the script.
Send your information to:
Universal Arts Ltd., 12 Edina Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
(+44 131) 478 0195,
e-mail: admin@universal-arts.co.uk. |
