Following the news that MTV will hold their Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh this Autumn, an Edinburgh based theatre company - who count Irvine Welsh among their supporters - are planning a "kick out the MTV Awards from Leith" campaign during this years Edinburgh Festival.
The campaign will be run to promote Sniperculture, a new play from theatre company Underground Utopia, which is premiering at the Traverse Theatre. Its organisers hope to set up an alternative free festival this November to compete with the big MTV bash and are encouraging artists to come forward to perform.
The play itself is billed as a "furious head-on collision between Medea Greek Tragedy and Cobain/Love psycho drama" and was described by Traverse boss Philip Howard as "a capsule of energy" when he launched the venue's Fringe programme earlier this week.
Talking about the campaign the show's director, Edinburgh based Tam Dean Burn, told reporters: "It is a disgrace that Edinburgh Council and Scottish Enterprise are bankrolling the MTV Awards. Local people will gain nothing but disruption and a few temporary low-paid jobs, servicing this corporate music ego-fest. We need to harness the same energy, determination and collective action as have been displayed at the anti-war and anti-capitalist demonstrations in recent years to kick MTV and its celebrity bandwagon out of Leith."
The campaign follows reports that the Scottish Executive and Edinburgh City Council were putting up £750,000 to help stage the MTV event in November - compared to the £64,000 given to the Fringe Society each summer.