Gilded Balloon �struggling�, while Assembly Rooms is hit by dry rot and the loss of sponsorship deal
By Edd McCracken, Arts Correspondent

BETWEEN them they have helped launch the careers of comedians such as Rhona Cameron, Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas; dallied with controversies like Jerry Springer - The Opera; and lured Hollywood stars such as Christian Slater onto the Edinburgh stage. But now two of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival's biggest venues, the Gilded Balloon and the Assembly Rooms, have been hit by financial crises just weeks before the deadline for performers to sign up for this year's programme.

The Assembly Rooms, one of the festival's "big four" venues, has lost its sponsorship deal with drinks firm Belhaven, believed to be worth around £60,000 a year. The Gilded Balloon, meanwhile, is understood to be struggling financially after investing heavily in an unsuccessful English comedy festival.

The news comes after several recent setbacks for the Fringe, the world's biggest arts festival. Last month it was announced that the hugely popular Spiegeltent would not be taking up residence in George Square in August. The main comedy prize, the IF.comedy award - formerly the Perrier Award - has also lost its main sponsor, Edinburgh-based financial services provider Intelligent Finance.

Furthermore, chiefs at all of the big four venues - the Assembly Rooms, the Pleasance, the Underbelly and the Gilded Balloon - have confirmed that the much-touted Edinburgh Comedy Festival, the joint branding of their comedy programmes which was launched last year in a bid to attract a big-name sponsor for this year's festival, has failed to find a backer.

Explaining the company's decision to end its four-year sponsorship of the Assembly Rooms, Belhaven's drinks division managing director Bill Hughes said: "We are constantly reviewing and refreshing our brand sponsorship and marketing. We've committed quite a bit to above-the-line TV advertising, which we believe is good for the brand. So our commercial decision is not to renew our sponsorship this year."

William Burdett-Coutts, the Assembly Rooms director, said Belhaven's decision was "a great shame".

He added: "We've had a great relationship for a number of years and they have been a great sponsor. We're very sad that the have decided to move on. We are talking to a number of other sponsors at the moment, but we are looking for someone to replace them.

"Sponsorship is a key part of what we do so finding a sponsor is important to us. Anything that affects the operation in this way doesn't help."

Burdett-Coutts recently held crisis talks with Edinburgh City Council after he discovered that one of his key spaces in the Assembly Rooms would be unavailable in August due to dry rot.

"I've not had an easy time," he said. "But we'll still be there. We're almost fully programmed, so hopefully it will settle down in the next week or two."

The deadline for entry to the Fringe programme is April 22.

Karen Coren, the founder and director of the Gilded Balloon, declined to reveal the extent of the company's loss at the Leicester Comedy Festival in February. Instead, she remained cautiously upbeat about this year's Fringe.

She said: "I did do Leicester and it was very difficult. There was snow instead of sunshine and not a lot of people came out. But if anyone knows me, they know I will just keep going. I put my own personal money into it so I'll probably have to do more of that. But it's not going to be easy."