Fringe holding talks about spreading out across the city

Edinburgh Festival Fringe is having talks about creating new areas for street performers in the heart of major developments in the city centre.

Official stages for performers are also expected to be moved away from the Royal Mile as part of a strategy to spread out festival crowds around the city centre.

Around 1,000 street performers register each year for the right to enter a daily draw for coveted slots in just two licensed arenas, in the Old Town and on The Mound.

However, Fringe chiefs are hoping to take advantage of new public space being created as part of the St James and Waverley Mall developments to ease crowd congestion on the Royal Mile and reduce disruption for residents.

Some performers staged impromptu performances in other Old Town thoroughfares closed to traffic for the first time this month, but these were not policed by the Fringe Society.

It wants to roll out a series of official new sites in agreement with the city council as part of a five-year blueprint published ahead of the 2018 event.

Head of marketing Oliver Davies said: “If we can move elements of Fringe activity, such as what we have on the Royal Mile, into other areas with lower footfall we are very much up for that.

We’ve had very positive discussions so far. Everything needs to be part of a city-wide strategy. If there are areas that are very heavily populated we’re looking to manage those spaces better but also spread the load to other areas as well.”

“We obviously have very good links with street performers, so we reiterated the ban on amplification across the city and asked them to be considerate to local residents.

“We heard that buskers were actually self-policing in these new areas, as we were not directly in any of them. We’ve also been discussing with street performers the possibility of them potentially forming a collective group which could liaise with both ourselves and the council.”