Assembly Roxy
| Private company | |
| Industry | Arts |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland, UK |
| Products | Theatre and comedy promotion, productions and venues |
| Website | http://www.assemblyfestival.com |
Assembly is a theatre and comedy promotion company, producer and venue operator. It programmes and promotes entertainment events at venues in Edinburgh, London and Brighton, and is the longest-established of the so-called Big Four promoters at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. Year-round audience numbers at Assembly events are more than 500,000, and the company's artistic director is William Burdett-Coutts.
Assembly can trace its roots back to the 1981 Edinburgh Fringe when William Burdett-Coutts, who at the time was working at the Old Vic, intended to bring a show to the Fringe, The Madman and the Nun. However, he had left it too late to organise a venue. Fortunately, the Assembly Rooms on George Street had been vacated by the Festival Club, which had found it unprofitable to operate there. This meant there was space for Burdett-Coutts to host both his own show, and others. This was the foundation of the company which would become one of the "Big Four" Fringe venues, promoting shows at multiple venues across the city.
An early success was Alternative Cabaret, a show featuring Tony Allen, Jim Barclay, Andy de la Tour and Pauline Melville, which became one of the critical hits of 1981.
During August, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and under the title "Assembly Festival", the company now operates seventeen theatre spaces, and eight bars. In 2015, the Assembly Festival programme consisted of 163 shows, including performances by Milton Jones, Adam Hills and Jason Byrne.
The company has been running events at the Fringe since the early 1980s, originally at the Assembly Rooms, from which the name is derived. In recent years, the contract for operating the Assembly Rooms building during the Fringe has been awarded to the promoters behind The Stand Comedy Club, separating the company from its origins. However, from 2016, the company will again be operating the building.
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Wikipedia