The Edinburgh Comedy Awards jury has awarded its Panel Prize to Free Fringe Founder Peter Buckley Hill (PBH) for his work with the Free Fringe. PBH was said by the panel to embody the spirit of the Fringe and the award was made in recognition of "14 years encouraging and enabling some of the most exciting young talent on the comedy circuit to perform at the most important arts festival in the world".
With 176 shows in 22 venues over 19 stages, 2009 was the biggest year yet for PBH’s Free Fringe and saw not only comedy but theatre and spoken word performances greatly increase further adding to the diversity of the Free Fringe.
On the achievement PBH said “I’m proud that the Free Fringe has been rewarded at the Comedy awards this year. Both our performances and audience number increased significantly this year and this goes some way to show to everybody that free does not equal rubbish, Our shows are artistically as good on aggregate as any other group of shows and we are unique as a community of performers working for each other.”
The Free Fringe started in 1996 with one show, Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians with the aim of creating a direct relationship between performers and the consumer and to "cut out the middle-man, Venues are provided for free and performers do their shows for free, with a collection bucket for voluntary contributions.
