It’s time to do everyone a favour and cut back the overlong, self-indulgent Fringe

As a punter at 31 consecutive Fringes, every August I have heard and read complaints from locals, alongside trite reassurances from the council and the Fringe Society, about the inconveniences caused by the biggest annual event on the planet.

This year, more than most, it is noticeable. Only one thing, though, ever changes: each year, the Fringe gets bigger. It has grown in my years alone from around 600 shows to 3,800.

It’s time, lets face it, for the talking to stop and something to be done, something drastic which can appease both disgruntled local and patronising politicians yet which does not detract at all from Edinburgh’s glorious celebration of the arts. I propose, therefore, retaining the “open festival” policy in terms of shows and venues, but reducing the length of the Fringe from 3½ weeks to 2 ½.

The Fringe, you see, is far too long. Running almost a twelfth of the year, it is ridiculously self-indulgent.

There is simply no justification for the Fringe to run 25 days when almost every creative work does not need to adhere to a fixed schedule (unlike, for example, sport) and, especially, when one compares it to events of a similar scale; the Cannes Film Festival and its own Fringe, the Cannes Market, runs 12 days, while the gargantuan Olympic Games runs for only 17.

The Fringe should no longer operate during the first week of August.

Instead, it should open on the second Friday and close on the last Sunday. 17 days. Yes, there will still be the same concerns – I accept that; there will always be conflicting opinions with an event as large and unregulated as the Fringe – however, these will surely be more tolerable in the knowledge they exist only for just over a fortnight rather than just under a month.

Local businesses which rely on the Fringe? Please! Companies in other cities without a Fringe manage perfectly well.

Air B & B hosts? Surely, we’ll all celebrate those selfish, money-grabbers suffering.

And the poor, impoverished Fringe producer or performer? Well, he or she will come away with eight days’ less debt. DAVID HASTINGS

Abbey Road St Johns Wood, London