Edinburgh University is calling on other organisations to step up and help keep the Edinburgh Festival Fringe accessible to everyone, as its popular Fringe Village heads into its third year.
The university has been running its free-to-use Fringe Village on Bristo Square since 2023, giving performers and festivalgoers a central hub that does not cost a fortune to use. Now the university dean is pushing for more venues and organisations across the city to take a similar approach, warning that rising costs are putting the festival at risk of becoming something only the wealthy can afford.
The Fringe has long been celebrated as the world’s biggest arts festival, a place where unknown acts can share a city with household names and where anyone with something to say can find a stage. But in recent years, concerns have been growing that sky-high venue fees, accommodation costs and the general expense of performing in Edinburgh for a month are pricing out emerging artists, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds.
The university says its Fringe Village was set up specifically to push back against that trend. The space offers a free outdoor performance area, a place to hand out flyers, and somewhere for people to just sit and soak up the festival atmosphere without spending a penny. In its first two years it proved a hit, drawing in both performers looking for exposure and audiences wanting to experience the Fringe without constantly reaching for their wallets.
Heading into year three, the university is keen to see the model catch on. The dean made clear that one free space is not going to fix the affordability crisis on its own, and that venues, promoters and the wider festival industry need to think seriously about what they can do to bring costs down.
The timing matters. There has been no shortage of debate in recent years about whether the Fringe is losing its scrappy, anything-goes spirit as commercial pressures mount. Some performers have spoken openly about spending thousands of pounds to stage shows that end up losing money, relying on day jobs or family support to fund their festival run. Others have pointed out that the cost of renting a flat in Edinburgh during August has become completely unrealistic for anyone on a modest income.
Festival organisers have taken some steps to address affordability, including free shows and pay-what-you-can ticketing options, but critics argue these measures do not go far enough when the underlying economics of putting on a show remain so brutal.
Edinburgh University’s position is that institutions with space, resources and a stake in the city’s cultural life have a responsibility to chip in. Bristo Square sits right in the heart of the festival area, and turning it into a free community hub during August is the university’s way of putting that belief into practice.
For festivalgoers, the Village has become a reliable spot to catch impromptu performances, meet friends and take a breather from the relentless pace of the Fringe. For performers, particularly those just starting out, it offers a chance to build an audience without the pressure of a ticketed venue.
Whether others will heed the university’s call remains to be seen. The Fringe is a massive economic engine for Edinburgh, bringing hundreds of millions of pounds into the city each year, and not everyone with a financial interest in the festival is going to be keen on giving things away for free. But the argument being made is that if the Fringe prices out the next generation of performers and the audiences who want to see them, everyone loses in the long run.
The 2025 Fringe runs through August, and the university’s Village will once again be open throughout the festival. For now, it stands as one of the more concrete attempts to make sure that the spirit of the Fringe, open, chaotic and genuinely for everyone, does not get entirely swallowed up by the cost of putting it on.