Edinburgh Fringe shake-up

Changes to the constitution of the Festival Fringe Society will see the establishment of a Participants’ Council, designed to give performers, producers and venue operators at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the chance to put forward their views and opinions.

There will also be reserved places on the Fringe Society board for performers and venue operators, and the number of board members will be increased to ensure access to the widest possible range of expertise. The adoption of the new constitution at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Fringe Society has followed a major review of how the festival is governed and run, involving a major consultation to find out how stakeholders wish the festival to be run in future. Two thousand people, including performers, producers, venue operators and audience members, have completed online surveys or attended meetings to discuss ideas for updating the constitution and procedures, which have hardly changed since The Festival Fringe Society was established in 1957. The former constitution of the Society was written in 1969 when the Society was registered as a charitable company.