Richard Demarco - Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

Richard Demarco has attended every Edinburgh Festival. He has attended or been extensively involved with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world, since its inception. Over the years he has put on a wide variety of theatre productions, art exhibitions and cultural events. Some of the new artists appearing at his venues have gone on to become major figures in the arts.

The gallery venue was never run for profit; many performers were allowed to put on productions or exhibit at little or no cost. And Demarco himself has been no stranger to artistic and commercial risks. For instance, in 1995, his venue hosted a group of artists flown out from the then besieged city of Sarajevo alongside an opera installation by the young Damien Hirst.

No stranger to media controversy, Demarco has challenged successive Fringe organisers' boundaries by staging events outside Edinburgh. These have included a full costume, full length production of Shakespeare's Macbeth staged on Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth.

Always a controversial figure, his approach has not always sat easily with the Scottish arts establishment as the Fringe has become increasingly dominated by commercial considerations.

In 1999, Demarco's most recent direct involvement at the Fringe was in collaboration with Rocket Venues founder Xela Batchelder, as Demarco-Rocket Productions. In 2003, Rocket Venues took over the Roxy (also sometimes known as the Demarco Roxy) Art House, a converted church on the corner of Roxburgh Place and Drummond Street on the South Side of Edinburgh, previously used by the Pleasance Theatre (Pleasance Over-the-Road). In 2008 the building was sold to another organization, who doubled the rent and subsequently left Rocket Venues without a home. Richard Demarco and Xela Batchelder (now a full-time Associate Professor) still collaborate on educational and festival type projects, but on a smaller scale.

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