{"id":1205,"date":"2026-05-16T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opencomedy.com\/news\/?p=1205"},"modified":"2026-05-16T16:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:17:12","slug":"leicester-comedy-festival-payment-delay-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opencomedy.com\/news\/leicester-comedy-festival-payment-delay-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Leicester Comedy Festival’s Unpaid 78%: When the Charity Spends the Ticket Money First"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Benjamin Alborough told the BBC he\u2019s owed \u201cjust short of \u00a32,000\u201d by the Leicester Comedy Festival. He added the bit any working comic would: \u201cI\u2019ve got bills to pay like everyone else.\u201d The festival\u2019s settlement date was 19 April. As of mid-May, by the festival\u2019s own admission, only 22 per cent of artists had been paid on time. The other 78 per cent missed it, and many are still watching their inbox. On the Chortle estimate that\u2019s about 289 of roughly 370 shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alborough has since been paid, but not by the festival directly. He told the BBC that Colin Bowles of TrippleCeePee, one of the festival\u2019s production partners, settled what he was owed. The wait continues for hundreds of others \u2013 a third party stepped in for one act while the charity that took the ticket money is still hunting for the cash to do the same for everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What 19 April was meant to look like<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 2026 Leicester Comedy Festival ran 4 to 22 February. About 100,000 tickets, more than 500 acts, 700-odd shows across the city \u2013 Stephen Fry, Sara Pascoe, Rosie Holt on the marquee. And hundreds of jobbing circuit comics doing the rooms above pubs that pay the actual rent. Settlements were meant to land in performers\u2019 accounts on 19 April. Instead the email that landed told acts the money wouldn\u2019t be arriving \u201cto protect the charity\u2019s cashflow position\u201d. The festival had \u201cprioritised urgent operational expenditure\u201d over getting performer money out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sentence is the one to sit with. The festival doesn\u2019t really own the ticket revenue \u2013 it collects on the acts\u2019 behalf and is supposed to pass it on. Using it for operational costs first is the bit performers tend to find harder to forgive than the delay itself. One comic owed \u00a3104 told Chortle: \u201cIt\u2019s not life-changing but still annoying. I didn\u2019t realise them \u2018processing\u2019 my ticket sales meant \u2018spending\u2019 them.\u201d Another, owed roughly \u00a3600, pointed out they\u2019d already paid the festival a thousand pounds in fees upstream. They added: \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of money for what is essentially a pay-to-play gig.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pay-to-play math nobody puts on the poster<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The bit most coverage glides past is what decides whether a circuit comic comes home with money or a hole in the account: the registration fees. They\u2019re \u00a372<\/strong> for the smallest venues and up to \u00a3310<\/strong> for the bigger rooms. That\u2019s per show, before flyers, before the train down from Edinburgh or up from Bristol, before three nights in an Airbnb where the heating dies on the Sunday. Working comics I spoke to during February reckon a self-produced Leicester run sits anywhere from \u00a3400 to \u00a31,200 deep before a single bum\u2019s on a seat. The festival isn\u2019t pretending otherwise \u2013 those fees are advertised \u2013 but the settlement cheque is doing the work of turning a \u00a3700 loss into a \u00a3200 profit. That\u2019s the cheque that\u2019s late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is also why a settlement now a month overdue isn\u2019t a paperwork inconvenience. Reported individual amounts owed run from \u00a3104 to nearly \u00a3600 per performer, with at least one promoter, according to Beyond the Joke, owed over \u00a34,000 \u2013 at the lower end that\u2019s the train fare home, at the upper end it\u2019s payroll for actual members of staff. The pattern is the one the Live Comedy Association\u2019s parliamentary push earlier this month<\/a> tried to name out loud: circuit performers and grassroots venues run on margins so thin that an aged-receivable line item is a personal cashflow crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A charity whose income and expenses match almost to the pound<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The festival is run by Big Difference, a Leicester charity whose published annual income sits around \u00a3500,000 against expenses that come in, year after year, at roughly the same figure. There\u2019s no surplus to draw down. When ticket sales for the year\u2019s biggest event get spent on operating costs in March, there\u2019s no rainy-day pot to backfill the artists in April. Michael Harris-Wakelam, the charity\u2019s CEO, told the BBC: \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to communicate with [the artists] is this is a case of a small delay rather than \u2018you won\u2019t be paid\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year we have gotten it wrong and as such we must delay settlement payments whilst we wait for expected income to be received.\u201d<\/p>\u2013 Statement from the Leicester Comedy Festival to performers, reported by Chortle<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Harris-Wakelam blamed outstanding sponsorship money, ticket-platform reconciliations and commissioned-show payments not yet received by the charity. That is plausible, and probably true in the strict accounting sense. It also raises a slightly uncomfortable question about ring-fencing, which is what trade unions exist to ask. Equity is listed among the festival\u2019s partners. The acts owed money are, in many cases, Equity members. I\u2019d be very interested to read the next letter Equity sends to Big Difference, and I suspect it\u2019ll be less collegial than the one in the partner deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LCF in the Park is still on the calendar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The bit that surprised me, honestly, is that Big Difference is pressing on as if the calendar hasn\u2019t noticed. The 2027 festival is going ahead. LCF in the Park, a one-day outdoor spinoff, is booked for June this year. That\u2019s a confidence call by the charity (\u201cthe cashflow problem is real, the festival isn\u2019t\u201d) but it\u2019s also the awkward sales-pitch the next round of registering acts will read. If you\u2019re a circuit comic deciding in late August whether to drop \u00a372 to \u00a3310 on a Leicester slot, what matters is whether the cheque clears in April or July, and what that does to your tax year. Everyone loves the audience \u2013 Alborough loves it, told the BBC he wants to come back \u2013 that part was never in dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wider context isn\u2019t kind here either. Chortle\u2019s February wage-slump survey<\/a> reported circuit fees down sharply on pre-pandemic levels, and bookers across the country are tightening lineup criteria<\/a> rather than expanding spend. Even the bigger institutional plays \u2013 the BBC\u2019s Liverpool festival<\/a> with its free-ticket model, the Fringe May programme drop<\/a> \u2013 assume comics can carry a few thousand pounds of float for two to three months. Leicester just demonstrated what happens when that assumption meets a charity\u2019s bank balance in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three things to count between now and August<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Three things are worth tracking specifically rather than vaguely. First: the running tally of how many of the 78 per cent get paid in May versus June \u2013 the festival has not, to my knowledge, given a revised settlement date, only a vibes-based \u201csoon\u201d. Second: whether Equity or the LCA issues a public statement, because as of writing neither has, and that silence becomes informative around the four-week mark. Third: registration fees for 2027 when they open. If Big Difference quietly drops them, or restructures so artists keep the ticket revenue in escrow until settlement, that\u2019s a real change. If the fees stay the same and the email goes out in August as if 2026 didn\u2019t happen, that tells you what the charity learned, which is: the room will sell out anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alborough\u2019s last line to the BBC was that he\u2019d be back in February regardless. \u201cI absolutely love it,\u201d he said, \u201cand I really, really want to be able to come back next year.\u201d Registration for 2027 opens in late August. The fee schedule, last I checked, was still the same one as last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n