Fringe chief vows to ‘spread the love and share the benefits’ across capital

The chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has promised that the event will do more to help encourage the creation of venues outside the city centre.

Shona Mccarthy said every help would be offered to parts of the city that wanted to host Fringe shows after extensive efforts to help get Leith more involved in the event this year.

She said: “There is an expec- tation in Edinburgh at the moment that people will stay in the city centre and walk to whatever venue they’re going to.

“In most other cities you would expect to get on a bus or train or get a tram.

“There is a real opportunity to spread the love, if you like, and share the benefits outwith the city centre.

“We don’t programme or curate events but we can encourage other parts of the city.

“All we can do is respond to communities, venues or promoters who want to make things happen in other parts of the city.

“When communities or people tell us that they want to be on the footprint of the Fringe or have the flow of visitors through their area, we listen and offer the support that we can.

“We’ll definitely be having more conversations with people in the city about what is possible.”