ZOO’s 20th anniversary should have been cause for great celebration this summer. Instead our stages remain empty.
The disastrous effects of the Covid crisis have rippled through our industry and have hit artists and performing companies the hardest. We need your help to get them back on the stage.
To make sure ZOO can survive and continue supporting artists in 2021, we need your help.
We’re determined to return to the Fringe next year to continue championing the very best artists at the Fringe and provide unparalleled support to performing companies in 2021. We’re taking advantage of Crowdfunder’s amazing generosity of free access to this site in the hope of raising £10,000.
- 70% of what we raise will be going into our dedicated co-producing fund to help us put spectacular dance and theatre performers back on stage.
- 30% will help us open our doors next year by contributing towards annual running costs and support our year-round team of freelancers.
With your kind support, these donations will help provide a stable home for artists currently looking at a very uncertain future.
With our summer season cancelled or postponed due to the global pandemic, the hard work of hundreds of creatives has been devastated, with future opportunities dwindling before our eyes. Our ability to share our live programme with you has disappeared; our only source of income along with it.
This has left our future in a perilous position.
Even without building our venues or bringing our programme to you this summer our year round running costs still total nearly £20,000.
ZOO receives no public or private funding and has always operated on a tiny budget. In spite of this, our programme is recognised worldwide for its artistic quality and calibre of performance. We work on a break-even basis, with any profits reinvested into our co-producing fund. This allows us to provide additional and much needed support to performing companies the following year.
The loss of the 2020 festival runs deeper than its absence in Edinburgh this year. It has cost us our chance to support artists in 2021.
We’re here now, to try to get this back.
Winner of the Herald Archangel for Outstanding Programming
Over the last 20 years, we have been at the forefront of championing and celebrating the companies creating the best work. As well as offering a supportive platform at the world's largest arts and culture festival, we open doors to opportunities and give a voice to stories that deserve to be told - staged in unique and fascinating ways. This type of work is often non-commercial. However these stories are the most crucial ones to tell and taking risks like this is essential.
To combat this, each year ZOO contributes £20,000 to co-producing unique shows that push the boundaries of what we expect to see on stage.
Our Main House provides one of the largest stages at the fringe and allows us to programme astonishing large-scale international works as they were intended to be seen. Technically complex shows wouldn't normally find a home at the fringe, but we have made it our mission to bring these to the festival – even if it means craning a trampoline through a first floor window at 2 in the morning!
We want to ensure we can keep bringing you a range of awe-inspiring work and make the Fringe a platform for companies of all sizes, with no limit on ideas.
Emerging companies performing in our venues have found their graduate show picked up and turned into a national tour. Mid-scale artists have booked their first international dates. This is our job: to provide a place for these things to happen and to give those performing with us whatever they need to make the most of these opportunities.
By donating now, you can help us create:
A home for emerging artists with full support before, during and after the festival.
A platform for ambitious large-scale shows as intended to be seen in all their magnitude.
An award-winning programme of the most challenging, entertaining and unexpected work.
#ZOO21 must happen. And with your help, we can put artists back on stage.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts - the ZOO team
So we can still celebrate our 20th anniversary and to make sure our favourite companies can share their work with you, we've created ZOO TV.
Launching on 17 August, ZOO TV is a new digital platform, sharing the best performance from the last 20 years of ZOO. All performances are free to watch, with the opportunity for you to donate directly to the artists.
https://www.zoofestival.co.uk/
Find out more on social media by searching #ZOOTV.