One of the main hubs of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Assembly Rooms, will cease to be a key venue after 2010, its promoter warned yesterday.
Bill Burdett Coutts blamed Edinburgh City Council for threatening his 30-year link to the historic property by going ahead with a £12m revamp.
The authority is planning to redevelop the council-owned listed building on George Street, with its ground floor turned into areas for shops, and a "fine dining" restaurant taking the place of its current bar. Work is expected to start in September 2010 and take 22 months to complete.
Questions were raised last year about what was then thought to be a short-term refurbishment of the Assembly Rooms, but the council has now spent £500,000 on design plans and Mr Burdett Coutts said that the proposed changes would leave the venue unsuitable for use as his main Fringe theatre.
He plans to pull out of staging shows there, ending three decades of using the venue for Fringe productions, and place comedy acts elsewhere in the city.
Mr Burdett Coutts said: "If (the work) goes ahead, I won't be here. If they do go ahead with it, I don't see the point in carrying on. It would be better that I stop.
"It would, in my view, be a tragedy. This is a unique building and a unique venue, but if it ends in 2010, then that is my 30 years up. I think it would be devastating for the Fringe.
"I don't think the council will listen to me because they think I am being difficult.
"It is strange, because I think that Edinburgh City Council does not engage with the Fringe, there seems to be a barrier between the Fringe and the councillors and I don't know why."
Last night, a spokeswoman for the council said an announcement about the future of the scheme would be made soon. She said that "the proposals state that most of the Rooms will operate as an arts venue despite the changes, so there is no question about it not being suitable as a Fringe venue".
Mr Burdett Coutts has leased the venue for the Festival every year and, under his artistic control, it has become one of the "big four" venues of the Fringe, along with the Gilded Balloon, the Pleasance and the Underbelly.
The quartet have controversially marketed themselves as a separate Edinburgh Comedy Festival this year, although one of the prime aims of the venture - to find a commercial sponsor - has yet to be achieved.
Mr Burdett Coutts said that such a sponsor, who it was hoped would pay around £1m for the privilege, was unlikely to be signed this year - and may not be found for the next Festival.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article