Global hunt on for 'inspirational' £115,000-a-year Edinburgh Festival Fringe leader

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has launched a recruitment drive for a new chief executive who will be paid up to £115,000 a year to oversee the 77-year-old event.

The successful candidate will be charged with leading the development of "a vital cultural asset for Edinburgh, Scotland and the home nations”, as well as building its "strong international reputation and brand".

The Fringe Society says the new chief executive needs to provide "inspirational and motivational leadership”, while being the "senior public representative" of the festival.

The successful candidate will replace Shona McCarthy, the Fringe's longest-serving figurehead, who announced last month that she would be stepping down in the spring after nearly nine years in the role.

The Fringe Society, which runs the festival's official box office, website, delegate programme, marketing campaign, media centre and “Made in Scotland” showcase, has an annual £5 million budget, employs around 40 year-round staff and brings in another 100 seasonal workers.

The Fringe Society’s application pack states it is "the only organisation" that can provide the level of services and support needed for artists and companies involved in the events, while retaining the "impartiality" needed to ensure it retains its long-standing "open access" ethos.

Key challenges identified include ensuring "affordable accommodation" is available to performers, securing new funding to help artists and companies meet the costs of putting on shows and overseeing the Fringe Society's move to a new headquarters on Infirmary Street.

Ms McCarthy has been an outspoken critic over a lack of support for the Fringe from the Scottish Government, its arts agency Creative Scotland and the city council.

This year's festival ended with performers organising on-stage protests at the sudden closure of a Scottish Government fund for artists.

Ms McCarthy admitted in an open letter that emerging artists were being squeezed out by “relentless” rising costs, "blunt" policy changes and "continuous" public sector cuts. She raised concerns that artistic risk and ambition at the Fringe were being "hamstrung" and suggested there was "complacency" over the success of the event, which sold 2.61 million tickets this year.

The application pack describes how the Fringe has grown to become "the greatest platform for creative freedom of expression in the world”, and an event second only in size to the Olympic Games in terms of ticket sales.

However, the Fringe Society has highlighted how the "financial and emotional risk" of taking part in the festival has grown in recent years, adding that it is expected to provide a "first-class service" to participants as well as be the "publicly accountable face of the Fringe".

The application pack states: "The idea at the heart of the Fringe is simple: Anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them is welcome.

"No individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform. It is made up of thousands of moving parts, individuals, collectives, and micro-businesses.

"There is no one organisation that runs or controls it, but the whole community subscribes to a collective vision to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat, and to shared values - to support artists to thrive, be open to all, and look out for each other and the planet.”